how bright he was. i knew he would be a big contributor. it was not until after the convention that it was clear he was on a fast track. as a road in the book, i was working for john edwards. it did not work out well. i was working for obama. the contrast between the two was profound.

smart guy. he wanted the cliff notes. he wanted to do what he needed to do. >> obama want to to drill three and four levels deep. from the first time i met him, he or -- he was a guy that thought winning elections was not the most important thing. it's what you do when you win. what you do to move the community or country forward. i saw national skills. the convention was sort of the line of demarcation. >> did you see in him at that time a man that might be president? everybody steps forward and says oh, i saw him. rahm emanuel says that.

>> don't hook him to a lie detector on that one. [laughter] i met barack in 1992 when a friend of mine who was in liberal politics in chicago called me and said he was one of the most remarkable young men. i said i was happy to meet anybody you want, but why this guy? she said, i think he could be the first african-american president of the united states. this was in 1992 when he returned from law school. i had lunch with him. i remembered very clearly how impressive he was. i did not walk away humming "hail to the chief." but what was clear to me, this guy was the president of the harvard law review, editor. the first african-american. could have written his ticket at any corporation, any law firm and be set for life essentially. instead he went back to chicago to run a voter registration drive.

>> did he do that so he can live in a place where he can start a political campaign? >> i think that in the conversation with him what was clear to me was that he saw public service as a vehicle to do things. i think the world of politics divides into two categories. the first are people who want to be something and the second are people who want to do something. i'm attracted to the second group because i believe in it. the title "believer" is not about barack obama. it is about the ability we have to steer our future by -- through the practice of policy. >> believing in something bigger

than yourself. >> absolutely. my whole interest started when i was a kid in new york city. i was five years old and a woman used to take care of me. an african-american woman, very poor, from the south. took care of other kids so she can take care of her own. she took me to 20th street because she heard john f. kennedy was coming. this was 10 days before the 1960 election which tells you how things have changed because he had 10 stops in new york 10 days before the election because new york was a swing state in that race. she put me on a mailbox and i watched the street fill in with people. a young man jumped onto the platform and everybody watched with wrapped attention. it was clear it was important. i did not understand all the words then. but, it was clear it was important. what he said, i found out on google years later -- which nobody could have imagined. he said i am not here to tell you if you like me, everything will be good. being a u.s. citizen in the 1960's was a hazardous

occupation filled with challenge, but also hope. the message was we have some ability to control our destiny and these decisions matter. his brother, who i worked for when i was nine years old a few years later in new york, bobby kennedy said the future is not a gift, it is an achievement. in other words, we have to craft and work for that future and that is what politics is about. obama understood it is clear that is what he believed, too. >> you did not go into running political campaigns, you became a journalist. >> i did. i worked on campaigns when i was a kid and i went to the university of chicago. i went there in part because it was a great political town in the early 1970's. they just have the convention there. last of the big city machines. black independent politics was

beginning to flourish. i thought this would be really interesting. when i got to the university of chicago at that time, the problem was nobody wanted to talk about anything that happened after the year 1800. i started writing for a local newspaper in order to save my interest in politics. i became a little expert on chicago politics while i was still a college student. i got a job at the "chicago tribune." >> started to cover politics. >> i spent 2.5 years on nights because they said to me you know a lot about politics, but you better be a reporter. i covered a lot of murder and mayhem which was good preparation for chicago politics. i got taken off that beat from time to time to cover what they thought -- losing candidates just to give me a little taste of it. they took me off in 1979 to work for a woman named jane burn who was challenging the machine and she became mayor. that was the beginning of my 4.5

years as a political reporter and city hall bureau chief. >> how did you get into politics? >> i got disillusioned at the newspaper because the corporate guys were pressing in on the newsroom which is something that is familiar today. the atmosphere of the newsroom -- we had a great, front-page dynamic when i got there and it shifted. i became disillusioned about the direction. paul simon came along, senator from illinois. an orville redenbacher kind of character, but really a paragon of progressivism and integrity. he asked me to work for him and i resisted. he was working for the senate. finally, i decided i was going to make the jump. i went to work for paul. i went as a communications

director and ended up as a campaign manager. we ended up beating charles percy who was a three-term senator. >> a moderate republican. >> although, he was trying to shift a little to the right to get in step with the reagan wave which was going on at the time. i think that hurt him in that election. we ended up winning while reagan carried the state in a landslide. simon edged percy out. it was a big win and that was my launch in politics. >> and then you got involved with barack obama who got the senate nomination. in 2004, he goes to the convention in boston with john kerry being nominated. how did he get that speech?

>> well, it was not an immaculate conception. we did campaign for that. we let it be known that we were interested. he had come shortly after the primary, the senate primary that obama won and he spoke at an event and got a huge response. john kerry filed that away. he was prone to accept our petition to give this speech. we were driving around in southern illinois one day in the spring and got a call from kerry's manager. she said to obama that they wanted him to give the keynote speech. he said he knew what he wanted to say instantly. he wanted to talk about his story as part of the larger american story. >> he has talked to me about that at this table. his capacity to make his narrative and america's narrative intertwined is the success he had in communicating with the american people. >> first of all, his capacity for narrative generally and the ability to tell his story is an exceptional quality. >> he did not seem to have that in 2012. >> it was a different kind of

election. one of the great difficulties -- you can imagine it is frustrating for me to hear as somebody in both the campaigns that he was great in communicating and the team was so great in communicating when he was a candidate, why were they so bad at communicating? when you come to the white house in the midst of an epic economic crisis with two wars and you are facing placable opposition and you are trying to get a lot of things done, it is like three-dimensional communication rather than the kind of communication you would do in campaigns. when we ran for reelection in 2012, we had to acknowledge the reality of our situation. many people -- there was a headline in "the new york times" on the cover of the magazine a year out. mr. silver, the handicapper for the times, wrote the piece. it was his obama toast. we had to run a different kind

of campaign. there was no wave behind us and we had to grind it out. now, i would argue that we did ultimately control the message of that campaign and it was about much of what we are hearing today -- the middle class, building an economy that works for the middle class and that is why we were able to win the election. >> what do you see when you see barack obama today having gone through what he has gone through and with him and not with him in terms of where you are the last four years. what do you see? >> in the last several months, i see -- since the midterm election, i see a guy who seems reborn.

there is a new bounce in his step. i think he is very focused and enthusiastic. he was exhilarated by the things he was able to do after the election to deal with china on climate change, immigration reform, reaching out to cuba. >> there are those who say the tone he has now is almost defiant. he has no more elections to win or lose. >> right. he also does not have a democratic majority in the senate now. when you are the president and your party has one or both houses of congress, you have to be somewhat responsive to their needs as well. it is less so now. we saw it last year. >> harry reid has needs? >> he was very needy last year in the sense he did not want the president out. they thought he was a negative symbol for some of their senate candidates.

>> he was the issue. bill clinton will argue today that was a real problem. the president became the issue. there was no national agenda on the part of the democrats. >> bill clinton probably understands as well as anyone that you can never run away from the president. it was foolish. if the president is going to be the issue, at least let the president go out there and focus a national message. i believe if he made a speech he made at the state of the union this year about a year and a half earlier, and had a sustained presentation on the economic message, democrats would have done better at the margins. there were some states that were very difficult, but i think he could've made a difference. >> even he had to call on bill clinton and make him "explainer in chief." >> bill clinton had the standing

to do it because he was clear of some of the problems. this president took over in the midst of the worst economic crisis in history. bill clinton was seen as someone who presided over an economic revival. he therefore had qualifications to go out and speak about the economy in a way that was very compelling to people. he is incredibly gifted. i worked with him towards the convention speech i write in the book about. the experience of waiting for his draft which came two hours before the speech and was half the length he actually delivered. when i heard his speech -- >> a lot of what he said he did not put on. >> i was standing at the foot of the podium and i was watching his teleprompter and it kept stopping, but he kept talking.

he memorized half his speech wrote the other. that was fine because he was spectacular. i really appreciated that. >> was it good for the campaign? >> his role, i was the one who nominated him in our group to do the nomination speech at the convention and to do what he did. we wanted him to bring the economic case against the republicans and for the president to the american people. he did that anyone out and repeated it wherever he went. he was the first call the president made after governor romney conceded. he said you were the m.v.p. of the campaign. given the friction that occurred in the 2008 campaign between clinton and obama, to see the forging of that relationship over time was interesting to watch. >> who gets the most credit for bringing that relationship to a better place? >> they both had to get over some things. what i realized --

>> bill clinton and south carolina and things like that. >> there was some bitterness over the past in 2008 and maybe more on the part of president clinton because it is easier when you win to forget about these things. what you realize when you work as i did 20 feet from the oval office is that presidents do not have too many peers. there are five living presidents and they uniquely understand what that office is about and the kind of pressures one faces. >> what do they understand? >> they understand that nothing comes to that desk unless it is impossible. if it can be solved somewhere else, it never gets to them. there are rarely perfect choices. there are always difficult choices to be made. you live 24 hours a day with

that sense of responsibility for the safety of the country, the economy and other things. i came away from that experience with deep respect for anyone who sat in that chair whether i agreed with them or not. it is an awesome, awesome responsibility. it is not fashionable to say the president of the united states makes sacrifices. every day i saw the burdens that came to that desk and i thought this is not a job i would want not a job many people could do. >> what is his best skill then? >> he may be the smartest person i have ever met. he has a great ability to cut through the core of issues. in the first six months we were there, we were dealing with this economic crisis. this prospect that one in three chance of a great depression.

everyday, we were checking the vital signs of the economy and trying to figure out what buttons to push. to see him reason through these things and the questions he asked -- larry summers, a brilliant guy. maybe -- he maybe -- he sometimes thinks he is the smartest guy in the world. it does not bother me because i think he may be. he and obama would get into these colloquies and barack would ask questions and larry would something you rarely hear him say. gee, i didn't think about that. >> bob gates in his book which was not as negative on the president. >> i think that is absolutely true. >> you seem to have respect for the fact -- when bush was president, he would ask good questions to the people with him. he said obama would go to the back row and go around the room in search for some new insight into how he could unlock a

challenging question. >> there is no doubt about it. he would synthesize that in an effective way. one point on gates -- my observation of him was that they worked very well together and that they work in similar -- gates, they were both low-key, both guys who deeply thought things through. i wanted to kind of force attention onto this because gates' book was miscast in some ways in the coverage. gates loved working with the president and i believe he did. i think they had a good working relationship. gates respected the fact that obama felt so deeply about these things and made good decisions. >> the president was asked once -- do you like politics? understanding that people like bill clinton love politics.

people like george bush love politics. and had fun at it. they don't know whether the president likes it or tolerates it. >> i don't think -- i think he loves politics in the sense he loves meeting people, going out and campaigning. i don't think he minds the give-and-take. he gets raw with the politics of washington. >> the cynicism of it all? >> he does believe in more important things than winning an election. it has been a problem because 80% of the people in washington have a different point of view.

>> we are talking about how do you get what you want passed through to the congress and that is the issue. how do you build coalitions whether it is international or a political coalition? >> i have said sometimes he does not relate to other politicians in the way that other politicians want to be related to because he tends to make the moral argument. >> is it because he thinks he is the smartest man in the room? a certain arrogance? he is supremely confident? at least two of those three things are right. >> the last thing is true which therefore it may lead to others like the first two. i don't think of him as arrogant. he can come off that way because he feels this is the obvious right answer to a problem and you are making a political argument to me that has nothing to do with solving this problem. >> we all understand from looking at "lincoln," the film and the johnson play with bryan cranston, that politics is about a process of dealing with human emotions and human egos and you have to do that -- whether it is emancipation or whether it is voting rights. >> the first two years we were

there, he passed more legislation -- >> it is easy to say that because the majority had in the congress. >> johnson had a big majority. yes, he did. >> your point was in fact sometimes it is not good to have a majority. >> it has its challenges. here is the reality we face. i have no doubt that obama could have spent more time socializing. more of that than you think. the reality is that there was a strategy and mitch mcconnell who is the shrewdest politicians in washington -- as a politician, yes. i think he made a strategic

decision. he did an interview in the new york times talking about it where he said he did not want to imply that he had figured the whole thing out. they knew this president was going to have to wrestle with this economic crisis and some really hard decisions. he had a big majority and they made a political judgment that they will let him wrestle with it on his own. there was a strategy of noncooperation. i watched the president spent hours with republican members of congress. we held the health care bill open for six months while he tried to persuade republicans to go along with him. some of whom were very sympathetic.

they said, look, we cannot be out there on our own. there is a role in place that we would be violating. you can say yes, he is not a schmooser. by the way -- >> when people know about lyndon johnson, they don't say he was a schmooser. it is much more being willing to get into the dirt and engaged with people whose vote you need. the tools that you can use to get them to support you. >> barack obama is not lyndon johnson in that sense. you mentioned george bush. i had an interesting conversation with barney frank about the tarp bill. obama really saved the bill in the fall of 2008 because a lot of republicans walked away. barney frank was in the middle. >> hank paulson was the secretary of the treasury. >> he said he never got a call from george bush, never socialized with him.

i don't have a nickname -- he said he did it because he thought the country needed us to do it. we kind of expected when we got to washington in 2009 that there would be some receptivity because we had a national emergency. >> you have great affection for this guy as you have said in this book and to this day. will he be clinical in his assessment? >> after the book was printed, i sent it to him because i wanted him to read it but i didn't want to make him feel we get editorial sway over it. he had some points that he mildly objected to. >> pray tell. >> some stylistic things that i think -- there were some coarse conversations i reported in here. all true. i think he would have preferred if i omitted some of those.

but, one he mentioned that i thought was very valid -- i wrote about the first debate in denver that was a disaster for us. it was a disaster because he did not engage in many ways. he said that i should've put in the book that we told him not to engage. he had some really bitter exchanges with john kerry. we were concerned he was going to come out and be ornery and nasty to romney. given the choice, we said do not engage. john kerry is playing romney. he was quite right about that. there were some earlier drafts that dropped it out. on the whole, he was very

positive about the book. i was not uncritical. i made the point you brought up earlier which is that he can be offputting to other politicians sometimes. he can lecture when he should be listening sometimes and that has hurt him. it would not have materially changed a lot of things, but it is true in his dealings with foreign leaders sometimes as well. most of these people are lifelong politicians and they don't need him to tell them what their political interests are. >> what foreign leaders is he closest to? >> angela merkel is one he has great amount of respect for. she would be one.

i think many of the european leaders are close and friendly. i have not been there for about five years. he liked monty. >> he told me the president came in in the most interesting way and asked him to help him understand how to reach merkel. you know her better than i do. help me understand a way into making sure that i can maximize our conversations about important issues. >> she is key to so much in europe, including the ukraine situation now. but, you know, i think one of the things that struck me when i was traveling with him around the world, he was very comfortable. i sat in bilateral meetings and watched him deal with issues very comfortably, but they were some leaders -- netanyahu is one of them. i think there is great

controversy in israel because they know it is putting stress on the relationship with the u.s. but, i think it was a play to strengthen himself. >> was there a conversation with boehner? >> the reports in israel is that sheldon adelson was the broker of this between boehner and netanyahu. i don't know if that is true. that would not be implausible. >> what is he going to do after the presidency? >> it is interesting.

we talked about whether he would run -- one of the things that appealed to him was that he would be 55 years old when he left the white house and it would be a lot of years left to live. one thing he will do for sure is what will probably be the most successful autobiography. i know this -- i think he is as good a writer as has been in the white house for many moons. >> elizabeth told me she thinks he will be a writer. he will be like richard nixon. he will want to write a lot and find a way to express his own opinions. >> his books -- i had to go back and look at his books when i was preparing my own just for a fact here or there. i was overwhelmed because he really is gifted.

>> the first book was the one everybody -- >> it was an incredible book. having labored over my own memoir, having the virtue of writing yours when he was 33. a lot less ground to cover. >> this book is a story of the two of you. this is a story of a journey of a man you took to the white house. >> the third part of the book was my life leading up to it. it was an incredible journey. as i told you we started at the point where both of us were on the edge of going out of politics. from that moment on, we went on a rocket ride. it was an almost implausible thing to imagine. ♪

>> what was the issue between you and jim messina? >> i like jim messina.

jim was a colleague of mine in the white house. >> every political reporter knows. >> i think we have a slightly different approach to politics. jim is an itinerant political manager, operative. sees it more of a business than i did. >> business means what? >> you approach it more like a lawyer. evaluate the client in the same way. you are not out there searching for people who you deeply believe in to work for you, you are responding to people who have a need. was that careful enough? >> anybody would understand what you are saying. what is happening in england, in britain where you are on the

opposite side? >> he went to work for david cameron. that is probably the big money side to be on over there. i work for the labour party. ed milliband, the leader of the labour party. the reason i did that was not because jim went to work for them. that did get my attention. i worked for them -- >> what did you mean a got your attention? >> i was kind of quizzical about it because we just bought a race in this country about the viability of the middle class, creating an environment where people can work hard and get ahead. i think this is the challenge facing every developed economy in the world now. technology, globalization has put downward pressure on wages

has made economic mobility more difficult. it is created a class distinction we have not seen since the gilded age. that is what is going on in britain as well. this race in britain is very much about that same issue. i feel like i am on the same side here. >> it is a very interesting idea. there have been 15 articles about hillary clinton and her effort to find the narrative that she wants to address this issue. if there is going to be a new political person, it will be someone that can speak to the truth of that question. how do we avoid the kind of declining middle-class and how do we give people hope of the american dream?

how do we eliminate the huge disparity that exists in this country and other places? it is a combination of understanding the future technology. understanding at the same time with a deep feeling the plight of people. >> i believe this. every advanced economy either will have the strategy to deal with this or at least help or it's is going to get worse. here is the thing for america -- we were built on a premise. my father was an immigrant and came here with nothing and my story is not unique. it is very common. the idea here was that here in america, you can go as far as your effort and talent will take you. there was this notion that if you work hard, you would be rewarded for that effort. that was the value around which we built our whole economy. if we lose that, we will lose fundamentally what we identify the american dream. you mentioned the american dream to people today, the average person thinks that is something from mythology. they don't believe it anymore

because they are working harder and harder and not getting ahead. we have to restore that sense to the economy and make clear if you start at the lowest rung you are not stuck there. we have the worst economic mobility among the developed nations. that cannot be america. i agree with you. i think the candidate who will do well and the candidate who should do well is the candidate who speaks most compellingly -- let me say this. the question always comes up about hillary clinton. my experience in 2007-2008 -- i worked for her once. she is a friend of mine. hillary clinton of 2007 was a cautious, guarded, kind of cloistered runner.

the hillary clinton of 2008 after she lost the iowa caucuses was a visceral, connected person who was close to the ground, spoke to the struggles of people. >> if she had been that way from the beginning and had put the right value and significance on the iowa caucus, she might have been the nominee? >> she might have. the iraq war hung heavy but certainly she was a much stronger candidate in 2008. if she is that person in 2016, i think she will do very well if she has the vision around it. >> you say she cannot run as hillary clinton, she is the run as going into the future. >> i don't think it is about your name, it is about what you project. >> this controversy came out about the phone call -- all the

people who were there said it happened as you said -- i will tell you. the backdrop of what you was said -- it happened exactly as you have written. some people say no, it was exactly what the president said. >> here is what i can tell you -- the president took a call from governor romney. when he got off the call, he said what i reported in the book which was romney had congratulated him. he said we were surprised by some of the turnout, how you got the vote out in places like cleveland and milwaukee. >> he didn't say i know high you got the black vote out? >> no, no. >> you got a better turnout. >> getting the urban vote out in cleveland and milwaukee. that is what he said. >> the president interpreted -- >> even as i heard the president's report of what

romney said, i don't think he was trying to be ungracious. you have to put it into the context that these two guys had battled this race for months and months. they were looking at it through a different lens. i was surprised the romney guys elevated the way they did because i don't think it warranted the response. >> they stepped forward and said romney did not even know that granular detail about the campaign. he had no real withstanding of that. you are saying what? >> i cannot be privy to what romney did or did not know. i'm just telling you what the president said. it's hard to believe the president would contrive the story of what he just heard. >> he didn't say anything, that romney did not say anything about the turnout? >> i only know what i read. they didn't call me to compare notes. >> suppose jeb bush gets the nomination. he is an attractive candidate.

>> he is. i have said if he gets the nomination without subverting his views on issues like immigration reform, and he can survive that process, it could be a formidable candidate for the obvious reason which is states like nevada, colorado florida with large hispanic populations -- he has a large kinship with the hispanic community. >> ohio has a republican governor that is very popular. >> the real question is you cannot win the nomination like that. >> bill clinton said to me at this table you cannot, in the primary campaign, say things that will destroy you in the general election. >> the last two republican candidates did not adhere to that discipline.

they were republicans who made bargains with the right wing of their party in order to be the nominee and thus made themselves unelectable in a general election. i think jeb bush recognize that mistake and clearly said he is not going to move on issues like immigration reform. the real question is can you win the nomination like that? i don't know the answer to that. >> if it is not him, who is it? >> i don't know. you look at the flavor of the month who was governor walker. >> is doing well in iowa. >> he has some appeal to the center-right and the right wing. he was what i learned in presidential races. it is like pole vaulting. they keep raising the bar. how are you going to do it at the highest bars? it is a very difficult excruciating process and its

test you like nothing else and it should. you are running for the most difficult job on the planet. scott walker coming out of a relatively small state -- i don't know how we can handle the kind of maelstrom that surrounds a presidential candidate on the move. >> let's assume bush gets the nomination and the united party. hillary clinton gets the nomination in an easy walk. can you see anything in the way of her not having an easy walk to the nomination? >> she is in a very strong position. somebody will probably put their name on the ballot. i think she will be the nominee.

>> do you think elizabeth warren will get into this race? the senator from massachusetts? >> elizabeth warren. she is a friend of mine. i think she recognizes the leverage he has in is not going to give up the leverage until she has to as a potential candidate. in terms of influencing the party's direction and platform. >> do you see the democratic party essentially today not the party of progressives or presented by elizabeth warren and the people having maximum authority? >> the central issue -- i think elizabeth is another version of the same central issue everybody is commenting on. the middle class. how more or less do you -- do you talk more about growth, less about growth? how do you create security and promise for the middle class. how do you create economic

mobility? there is going to be some debates around what proportions there are. i'm of the view that the message of the party is we can have a strong economy in the long run with a week middle-class. >> do you think the economy will be in good shape by the election? >> i think the economy is getting better. i ran into jason furman. he says he is very encouraged. does the world come back and that is a big concern? you are seeing things the one right now that are concerning but we have something very strong and genuine going on in our economy. does that mean we are going to see wage growth by then? that is the question. >> the wage stagnation.

>> it has been for quite a while. bill clinton ran in 1992 talking about the forgotten middle class. that was in part because globalization had hit some communities. >> the success of the obama campaign -- he has used social media extraordinarily well. republicans evidently have learned that in a beginning to do that in 2012. certainly in the midterms, they did much better at using it, correct? >> yes. social media and technology is churning so quickly so the question is not whether you can catch up, but whether you can foresee what the applications of it will be in two years from now for a year and a half from now. we were on the cutting edge of this so we provided new applications that had not been thought of before. >> like what? >> the way we use analytics in terms of identifying voters who might come our way. the way we used social media for organizing in ways that were never done. in terms of the technology or campaign? >> in terms of how to use

technology to reach what was the electorate. >> the president has great appeal to younger voters were more fluent in social media. we did pretty well with those voters in 2012. social media was a key to that. one application of social media that is very important in politics is people are so distrusting of established media sources that they want their friends to sort out the things they think are legitimate and that is what we did very well. we turned our tens of millions of facebook friends into agents into disseminating information

to potential voters. >> if you had to -- do you think anything will happen between now and january 2017 that will change his legacy -- understanding that we'll know what is going to happen in the foreign affairs world. we cannot see around the corner because it looks different today than it did four years ago or three years ago. >> there are things pending. one is the iran negotiations which can have major consequences. >> that would rise almost to the top if iran were to forgo nuclear. >> the climate change that he had a big push to with his agreement with china. that is coming up this year. i know he feels very strongly about that. that would be another. there are other things. i have to tell you i think his

legacy is pretty secure. this is a president that saved the country from economic disaster, changed the way we look at gays and lesbians. the whole range of things he did. point to the way of the big debate you point out which is how to create an economy where people who work hard can get ahead. >> do you think i can find a list of all those things in this book? >> you might. i am proud of him. i'm proud of him because he kept his eye on the horizon even when the politics were very difficult. i bump onto people in the street who tell me their lives are saved. i meet people in the service who might have been overseas. the 160,000 that now are home.

we had 180,000 troops overseas in battle when he became president. in harm's way in iraq and afghanistan and he has wound those wars down. autoworkers who were on the line and who would not be on the line for what he did. he has kept his eye on the horizon. >> this book is called "believer" by david axelrod. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

>> welcome to "bloomberg west." here's a check of your bloomberg top headlines. stock in the united states hardly moved today. nonetheless, a minor upset put the s&p 500 at record highs. they may reach a compromise with. u. creditors. crude oil rebounding earlier in the day. in ukraine, pro-russian rebels say they've taken control of the strategic town of debaltsuve. crucial fighting continues