events both in washington and, of course, on the turkey-syria border. tension racheting up overseas after turkey shot down a russian jet, a fighter jet, near the border with syria. russian president vladimir putin calling that attack a stab in the back. our john harwood is at the white house this morning with more. good morning, john. >> good morning, carl. you know, the french president, president obama are now meeting. we're going to find out in roughly a half hour or so whether there are any new policy changes coming out of that meeting. we've seen president obama after the paris attacks saying he would have an intensification of his current strategy, but not a fundamental change in it. francois hollande on is on a diplomatic tour. he will be seeing angela merkel of germany and vladimir putin of russia, and, of course, the new tension injected by the shootdown by turkish forces of the russian plane which had the turks said had violated their airspace injekts a new level of complexity here, so a lot to

watch for and wait and see. president hollande did not hesitate at all before rushing into the oel office meeting. as you mentioned, president obama had nothing to say as they were beginning their session deferring until this news conference in about 30 minutes. >> we'll see you in about 30 minutes, if not before. thank you for that, john harwood at the white house. of course, the market reaction to this morning to you. you obviously could, and we're right back in the day's lows. reassessing what's going on. there are reports that it's not just the turkey situation that ukraine is starting to build up again. reports that they are shutting off the electricity to the crimea and that russia wra is, of course, cutting off natural gas to the ukraines.

we have geopolitics on several fronts, and we want to find out what is the fate of the pilot. the worst possible thing to be if he were to fall into the hands of isis. >> why is it worth only half a percent so far? >> because it's an unfolding story. people can't figure out exactly what's going to build into it. you are waiting to see -- you know, you had a few words out of putin. let's see how really angry he becomes. how do the other players work out in this case. and what continues to happen. most importantly, you got to see what happens in brussels. do they come back in paris? if that were to happen, a second of that in paris, you would see the market react very, very strong. >> the most notable impact this morning, art, is the rise in oil prices. given that this is the world that we live in now, with heightened tensions across the globe, do you expect oil to be elevated from here on out? >> well, you have a couple of

things going on. oil, absolutely dreadful last week. you had a reversareversal. although we are beginning to lose some of that will gain. oil was up over -- close to $1.50 earlier. there are a lot of pieces in play here. watch the commodities, see how they play out.

>> people are not assuming quite yet, and that would be potentially horrific for the market. fed might find itself behind the curve. do you agree? >> that's a possibility, but a lot of the improvement in the gdp had to do with inventories. that will lessen the gdp in the next quarter, so it will weigh against it. i think year over year you're going to come in with a gdp up 2.25%. pretty much in line what everybody calls anemic. we're still data-dependent. i'm not quite at the 75% certainty that bond futures are. i am leaning that they will virtually almost force a hike, but i think they want to be

careful. you look at the yield curve as flattening. that could say a lot of things, but not the least of which may be that the economy is slowing. >> after earnings, though. >> well, it's possible, but we've seen that the people have taken the gas savings and paid down debt or at least go out and entertain themselves. not major purchases. they're not compounding it. the fed needs to be careful how the markets go. we watch here as we break

through the morning lows that the defense area is 20.65 to 20.68. >> one last thing on the equities, some people have tried to argue, you look at the number of companies whose dividend yields are above the corporate bond yields or above the ten-year or both. equities have become bond-like going into 2016. is that fair? would they be considered a safe haven? >> i would be careful of using the safe haven thing, but i think you're absolutely right. it's the only place you can get any return. people are basically buying risk where ier assets, stocks, because they're worried about how this is going to play out. >> art, we're going to find out a lot more potentially in 20 minutes when the president and hollande take the microphone. thank you very much. >> my pleasure. >> art cashin. >> when we come back on this tuesday, some incredible footage of a rocket landing. reusable rocket from jeff bezos'

space company, blue origin. we're still awaiting the news conference from the president and french president hollande at the white house. we'll go live to washington when they begin. dow down 73 points. we're back in just a moment. the throttle h on his little boat any harder if he tried. he's beached here, gazing out on an unforgiving landscape. for while the people who come in here use quilted northern, a toilet paper that works so well they completely forget their experience... daddy gator sees all and forgets nothing. "i've got to motor out of here," he thinks. "this is no place to raise a child." quilted northern. designed to be forgotten.

welcome back, john steinberg. i have information from blue origin. a rocket from the company making its first successful landing today. makes the first rocket to

successfully land and remain intact after taking off into space. currently all rockets were either destroyed or abandoned making spaceflight expensive. jeff bezos did talk about the future of blue origin this morning on the today show. loo it could be just a couple of years from now. one of the great things about this vehicle is we get to fly it autonomously. it flies itself. it's kind of a flying robot, and it goes up and down without any piltsz on board. we can test it without putting any humans at risk. we're going to bring you and other passengers, we're confident, up into space. >> space is not so crazy anymore. i wish blue or swrin were part of amazon. if you look at web services being up 70% year-over-year, $2 billion this quarter, and you look at what space x, elon

musk's company is worth, $12 million, fidelity wrote it up when they took all those mark don biz 15%. granted, it's a small position. too bad that amazon investors don't get access to blue origin? >> although they are capital intensive businesses, no doubt, and we are seeing the fruits of what is very impressive labor from blue origin. there is a lot of money spent and a lot of manpower put behind that effort along the way. >> i mean, actually blue origin has only raised $200 million, and space x has raised north of $1 billion. with that said, just to put some of elom musk's tweets into context, the new shepherd only goes mac 3.7. that gets you just outside into earth's orbit. to actually get to the space station which is what space x won the contract for, you need to go mock 10, which is what the falcon nine, which is musk's rocket is, able to do. this is a much more immature rocket than what musk is doing right now swloosh there's a lot of money to be made at the level where blue origin is going as well. you don't have to go all the way

to the space station to put things into orbit, to make a lot of money, right? >>. >> can you put the capital into perspective. >> outside of the orbit. if are you talking satellites and a lot of things people are going to be interested in, blue origin has -- >> absolutely. >> i think it's cost efficient. uber has raised $8 billion right now. elan musk is shooting rocket ships into the air for $1 billion. bezos is landing rockets on their tails. this strikes me as affordable unicorn land. >> wait until the surge pricing makes its way to rockets. here's what bezos wrote on twitter. "the rarest of beasts, a used rocket, controlled landing, not easy, but done right, can look easy. check out video." how much are the expectations here does he have to manage? this may not go right every time. >> i think this stuff is under expectations rooirp right now. i know a lot of hedge funds that have been trying to buy space x

stock. he has titlely controlled the stock. i think space is under priced. look, if space x is valued at $12 billion, and we've got home delivery services that are valued north of $20 billion, and we're talking about putting people and stuff into space, and we though longer have a private space program. to john's point, there's 1,000 different uses for putting space and not even talking about tourism. i think this is an underpriced market, which explains why so many hedge fubdz are fighting fighting to get space x share, which are in short supply. >> bezos did say that the goal is to have millions of people living and working in space. how far off is that goal, and do you see blue origin or space x getting there first? >> i think every bit of modern technology that we live with ten years ago seemed unimaginable. i think self-driving cars seemed unimaginable ten years ago. i don't know about millions, but if you told me that five or ten years from now thousands of people were going into space, what's interesting in the blue origin demo, he shows the capsule come off the top of it, which he faked with cgi, and people inside are wave, that's

the only part that he faked. the rest of it alreally happened yesterday. i think it's pretty close. >> you know, all those millions of people in space are going to be prime subscribers because how else are they going to get their stuff, right? jeff bezos owns the rocket. that's money eventually. all the venture that is he has, retail and amazon, cloud and amazon, droves eventually, robotics, space. this is an autonomously flown launched rocket landed rocket. and the washington post in content all seem to tie together at some level. it seems like he has a grand plan. >> i actually think it's a little unfair that am sdmron investors didn't get access to this. when you look at alphabet and the fact that google put $900 million into space x, so you get a little bit of space with google, not to mention their own space. it seems like at amazon web services at dlars 4 billion quarterly business, some people are saying it's worth $20 billion, $30 billion, $40 billion, it seems like you would want this. >> that's kindle. you got cloud. what are you? you want everything? you want the wash wash post too? >> you want amazon to be more of

a moon shot company. >> i think there's an argument to be made that oring amazon should acquire blue origin. they're undercapitalized. amazon has a ton of cash. it's under financeded relative to where space x is. you can either raise $900 million like space x did from google or put the $900 million in himself. it's not that crazy. >> at the next expedition didn't go as picture perfect as this. >> i think i would have made the same point. musk has been unable so far with this higher powered rocket to do these kind of landings, and i still would have been out here saying $12 billion mark the 15% by fidelity. >> you get the drone -- >> these are the drone companies. >> he doesn't have a cloud company either, but come on. >> now he needs to have a space company. amazon should acquire blue origin. >> amazon is lower. just about $10 or so, $15 from an all-time high, a couple of days before black friday. >> the channel advisor numbers were that in week two there was a slight deceleration in the shopping in week two from week one. schanl advisor points out that

conversions were up 1 percentage point. you're going into the holiday high priced and certainly strong performance. mobile will be 30% of e-commerce, and nobody is better at consequence mating transactions than amazon. bright holiday. >> right now reusing rockets. no one is better at that. >> good, guys. good to be here. >> when we come back, strong words in a new piece from a former apple employee. the headline? how apple is giving design a bad name. one of the authors of that piece will join us. we're still waiting for president obama and french president hollande. we will go there live as soon as we start speaking. squawk alley will be right back. ♪ approaching medicare eligibility? you may think you can put off checking out your medicare options until you're sixty-five, but now is a good time to get the ball rolling. keep in mind, medicare only covers about eighty percent

of part b medical costs. the rest is up to you. that's where aarp medicare supplement insurance plans insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company come in. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, they could help pay some of what medicare doesn't, saving you in out-of-pocket medical costs. you've learned that taking informed steps along the way really makes a difference later. that's what it means to go long™. call now and request this free decision guide. it's full of information on medicare and the range of aarp medicare supplement plans to choose from based on your needs and budget. all plans like these let you choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients, and there are no network restrictions. unitedhealthcare insurance company has over thirty years experience and the commitment to roll along with you, keeping you on course.

so call now and discover how an aarp medicare supplement plan could go long™ for you. these are the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp, an organization serving the needs of people 50 and over for generations. plus, nine out of ten plan members surveyed say they would recommend their plan to a friend. remember, medicare doesn't cover everything. the rest is up to you. call now, request your free decision guide and start gathering the information you need to help you keep rolling with confidence. go long™. ♪

our next guest since apple is giving the design -- obscure gestures, and confusing interface rules. bruce is a principal with nielsen norman group and was

apple employee number 66. bruce, at first when i read this piece, i didn't agree. i tried hard not to agree, but the more that you said, the more it kind of lined up with my experience as a user. that is, they're going into watches, phones, tablets, macs and trying to stretch the rules across all those things. it's getting kind of confusing. first question for you is when did apple have it best? what was peak user interface time, and don't just say when you were running it. i'm sure it was good then. >> it was -- it's been good on and off since the very beginning. it was particularly good when apple had gotten small again and steve was running the company and churning out new and revolutionary products. because steve was the usability testing function at apple. if he liked it, then it shipped.

apple lost its greatest usability person three years ago when jobs died, and the function was not taken oh by anyone based on empirical evidence. apple is putting out products without usability testing or without anyone listening to the usability testers. it's hard to say. the result is that apple is making blenders like ios 7 where the fonts were so thin that many people over the age of 45 just simply could not read them, couldn't see them. they were medium gray and very, very thin and they just blended into the background. all they needed was one test subject to come in. it was, like, 55 years old and sit down and say, yes, would i love to do what you are asking me to do, but there's nothing on this screen but pictures. they would have realized they had a problem. >> so, bruce, is the issue

perhaps that apple -- tim cook put johnny ive in charge of both hardware industrial design, where they continue to excel, and software and user experience design. there used to be a tension there where, you know, neither side got everything that they wanted, but now that you've arguably got a hardware industrial design guy running softwares, is it skewing too much toward being pretty and too little towards being usable? >> absolutely. apple's primary function is to sell products, and to that end they are doing an absolute brilliant job. secondarily to that it would be nice if these products were usable, and that's where the problem is coming in. it is not a problem with the engineers or the designers. they're absolutely brilliant. the problem is they don't -- at the end of the process they don't -- or during the process they need to go back and find out whether these things are

working. when you have that marriage of designing and testing and proto typing and testing and proto typing and testing, you come up with something that's much better. steve used to do that on his own, so now someone else needs to do it. >> so, bruce, an investor might say, well, so what? now we've got literally hundreds of millions of ios devices and macs all together out there. the customer satisfaction numbers are high on that scale. apple appears to be doing better than ever. does this catch up with them at some point, or is this just kind of like an argument among designers that's not going to affect the bottom line at any point? >> well, investors should be saying so what because the primary function of making these things bright and shiny and generate desire is still working absolutely flawlessly. there can be a penalty ethwe'll,

but it will be a long time come, and one reason is that everyone else is copying apple, and they don't have their own ability to discriminate between what apple is doing that's good and bad and so they're copying both. >> all right. anybody who you see looking to perhaps do it better? i know windows 10 has been out a couple of weeks. you guys seem to educate in your piece that you haven't had adequate time to test it, but it's been a few days since you published that. have you had any time? >> that's -- my partner, don, it's his ballywick, and i haven't gotten back to him in the last week or so, but microsoft is doing a far better job than they used to do, and certainly there is a vulnerability out there if someone wants too exploit the places that apple is doing wrong and then talk about it. so far that tha has not arisen, and whether it will, it's not clear. i think investors are in great shape.

users of these products could be getting better user experience than they are. >> all right. we'll see who improves faster, bruce. apple ar the competition. thanks for joining us. we should also note we did reach out to apple for comment on this piece, but have not heard back. >> all right. in the meantime, obviously some red arrows for europe as they wrap up their trading day. simon is back at post nine. simon. >> it is a much worse day in europe as you can see. there's a lot of red around. partly because of all the concerns about travel from the state department and also of course because of the geomrekt tension between turkey and, indeed, between russia. just for the record today, we got german gdp confirmed at an annu annualized rate. the survey of sent cement real strong. very strong according to jp morgan. the bank drop continues to be this drumbeat to the european central bank meeting a week on thursday where we thought they would double down on qe. a very important break in ecb politics today. one of the six member executive

team has broken ranks or broke ranks in munich last night to criticize the idea that qe should be extended. her name -- and she is german is sabine. she suggests that extra qe would buy time but does not heal the structural causes of a slack economic recovery. we should give the numerous and massive monetary policy efforts to time to take full effect." that has been summarized by saying that the hawks will take some convincing when next they meet a week on thursday. qe may not be a done deal. the market has priced for it, so the market could be hugely disappointed if that doesn't come through, but let's leave that for now. meantime, you see the reaction to troubled stocks. on this side it's more the international hotel chains and the giant on-line travel agencies. in europe it is the airlines, british airways here, trans-atlantic travel, immediately down from the off today. luxury goods, of course. tourists spend on luxury goods when they travel.

particularly in europe oosh or as you say not with tiffany today here in the united states. they are in negative territory. actually, top gainer today is volkswagen and, of course, it's holding company or part owner porsche. i thought volkswagen was doing better than that. that might be a delayed response there. they are now apparently under investigation for potential tax evasion because they were selling cars with a lower tax base on them because they thought their emissions were lower in germany, but the reason that we're rallying today is apparently because the vw ceo said last night that actually the problems in europe were manageable from both a financial and a technical perspective. i'm off for vacation. see you next monday. >> sounds good, simon. have a great time. we're still waiting the press conference from the president and french president hollande. don't go away.

but what if you could see more of what you wanted to know? with fidelity's new active trader pro investing platform, the information that's important to you is all in one place, so finding more insight is easier. it's your idea powered by active trader pro. another way fidelity gives you a more powerful investing experience. call our specialists today to get up and running.

good morning. i'm sue herrera. here's your cnbc news update this hour. a u.s. military official confirms to nbc news that turkey issued several warnings to the pilots of a russian fighter jet before shooting it down over the turkish province. meanwhile, russian defense official advisory issued a formal protest calling that incident unfriendly. the paris prosecutor says

french authorities have taken 165 people into custody since declaring a state of emergency following the november 13th terror attacks in paris. there have been over 1,200 searches and officers have seized over 200 weapons. minneapolis police say they are searching for three white male suspects in connection with a shooting last night that left at least five injured. demonstrators were protesting the shooting death of a blan wlak man who police say died during a struggle with arresting officers. the latest poll out of iowa is giving ted cruise a boost. among likely voters, the gop presidential hopeful is now in second place behind donald trump displacing dr. ben carson. that is the news update this hour. back to "squawk alley" and carl. >> thank you very much, sue. we are a few moments away from a news conference between president obama and french president hollande at the white house. meantime, we should take note. dow almost back to the flat line. john harwood is at the white house live with more.

john. for all we know president holland e and president obama are continuing to meet and discuss this very difficult diplomatic situation. they want to confirm a united front against isis, and they want to try to bring in russia in an empt to politically get bashar al assad out of syria which the united states believes is critical to resolving the swaying with isis. on the other hand, one of nato members, turkey, it's -- jet planes have hout shot down a russian fighter today saying that it transdepressed on surgeryish airspace. this is a very difficult problem, always has been. we have the terrorist attacks and the follow on attacks in mali, and now we have this new complication of the shootdown of the russian plane. difficult situation for these leaders today. we'll see what president obama and whether he takes a different

tone than when he had his press conference in turkey. a lot of criticism that he was too passive and flat. that he was angrier at republicans than he was at isis. he reiterated that his strategy is the right one. he is only going to intensify it, not fujdzly change it. we'll be watching to see if he has a different tone other than a different strategy today. >> we'll come back to you in a moment. john said, things continue to heat up overseas. turkey shooting down that russian plane near the syrian border. for more specificity on that, we go to nbc's joe fryer who is live in london. joe. >> carl, a u.s. military spokesman confirms that turkey did warn russian pilots. they were in turkish airspace before shooting down the aircraft. earlier today turkey confirmed that its f-16 jet shot down a plane near the syrian border. turkey claims that the plane had violated turkish airspace, ignoring repeated warnings, ten warnings in five minutes, according to the turkish air force. they said the plane was flying only within the borders of

syrian territory cite whatting it calls objective monitoring data. vladimir putin visibly angered. calling what happened a stab in the back by terrorist helpers. he says this will have serious consequences for russian-turkish relations. dramatic footage from turkish tv shows a plane going down in flames in a wooded area and a pilot parachuting down. russian helicopters were seen searching for the pilots. right now there are some conflicting reports over the fate of those pilots. a spokesman for rebels in the region told nbc news that some of its fighters had opened fire on the pilots as they fell to the ground, and they claimed one of them was killed. russia is an ally of syrian president assad and has been targeting his foez with bombing raids. nato says it's monitoring the situation closely and has called for an emergency meeting later today to discuss what happens. the fear is this will heighten tensions between moscow in the west and, of course, this comes as french president hollande

meets with president obama today. we'll hear from him in a moment. he will also meet with putin a little later this week in an effort to bolster international support in this ongoing fight against isis. carl. >> thank you for that. for more we're joined once again by former homeland security bob and also with us chief international correspondent michelle caruso cabrera who, of course, has spent the last week covering the paris attacks. bob, how does the fighter jet incident affect the news conference we thought we were going to have? >> well, i think clearly it's going to put the focus on how the diplomatic relationships between france and russia and the united states could be managed in light of that downing of the aircraft. as we said earlier, you know, the relationship between the united states and russia is very tense right now. the relationship between france and russia wra might be warmer. we have to be resolved against what russia has done in the past

while trying to delicately balance what we need russia wra to do in fighting isis. it puts turby in the center of it, and turkey has always been if the center point between refugee crisis and assisting us in fighting isis. my understand issing it had been getting more tense even before this incident. turkey, of course, geographically positioned in a very important spot for a number of reasons for the u.s. in the region. what had been happening before this, and how might this tip the scales one way or the other? >> so we know that turkey has definitely wanted assad to be out of power within syria, and that goes contrary to russia. it puts them on opposite sides of what is one of the crucial questions about what we're going to do, the united states and its allies within syria. bottom line, i think, when you saw the market react this

morning, john, there was a concern by what happened with this jet this morning would this somehow elevate into a much wider conflict between the west and russia at this point? i think the market reaction that you are seeing now, this -- the dow coming off the bottom, is ultimately when you are doing an analysis of the situation, turkey doesn't have militarily what it takes to take on russia at all. nato is likely going to tell turkey, listen, diplomatically we can support you, but let's calm the situation down here and de-escalate this and focus on what is the bigger issue. turkey is highly dependent on russia for natural gas. russia wra has the upper hand regardless. all the bellicose talk we've heard between russia and turkey, et cetera, bottom line turkey doesn't have much when it comes to trying to deal with russia, except, to listen, this was our airspace. don't continue to do this. don't continue to threaten us this way. that's about what they can do at this point. sdroo there are obvious conflictions between what happened with russia and turkey

this morning. bob, you were mentioning it just a few moments ago. later this week we will see the french president meet with the leaders of germany, italy, canada, china, heads of the european union, and the secretary general of the u.n. how do you see the process of bolstering support for a coalition where various nations feel differently about how strongly and how unified that coalition should actually be? >> clearly within europe, president hollande has to insure that he has good cooperation among all the allies there. the vulnerability that the europeans have to isis attacks and jihadist attacks on their soil for people who are currently there or maybe transiting through sear wra is they're very interdependent, right? security -- the lack of security in one area clearly represents a vulnerability in another as we've seen in the paris attacks. they need to be able to foster good relationships to insure that they can share information to predict or at least prevent these attacks before they -- that's critical.

>> michelle, you mentioned turkey not having the upper hand here. i mean, it has occurred in recent weeks where at least the north atlanta council has accused russia of irresponsible behavior as some of these fighter jets get close to the border, maybe too close for comfort. is that just a function of the skies being awfully crowded over there right now? >> that's hard to say, carl, but you are right. there's definitely been instances in the past where they have warned russian fighter planes not to invade the airspace, and the bad behavior goes beyond that. one of the concerns is that while russia is supposed to be targeting isis, at the same time they're accused of targeting moderate rebels who are trying to oust assad. people who are in theory also fighting the islamic state at this point, so it's incredibly complicated. russia's role at this point, what exactly are they trying to achieve here, and there are now reports that russia wra is a little bit concerned about what they've gotten themselves

involved with that it hasn't been as easy as they thought, or they weren't going to be as effective as they thought. perhaps they're more inclined some kind of political settlement or trying to push assad to push towards some transition at this point. it's incredibly dynamic situation that's going on as a result of the situation on the ground in syria. >> meantime, bob, let's take a turn and talk more about domestic issues. as we said wrerl, you were once in charge of infrastructure protection. we're going into a holiday weekend. we've got this warning from the state department. we've gotten some warnings to municipal law enforcement agencies. how on alert are you for something happening stateside? >> well, carl, historically we always look at the holiday events as significant for us for potential attacks. you know, people are going to be going to shopping malls. they're going to be large gatherings. all sorts of festivities going on that expose people to attacks that could be perpetrated and without a lot of plan, without a lot of sophistication as we saw in paris. you know, i would argue that the local law enforcement community,

clearly the feds, are very focused on this right now. as we've seen, the notice really heightened the awareness around active shooter types of responses insuring that local law enforcement authorities are very atune to surveillance and preoperational planning. people have to be a part of this equation. it's a serious concern for us. it doesn't mean people have to be fearful about it, but we have to be mindful of it that when you are going out and things potentially could occur, you have to be -- the classic see something say something is very relevant right now, and it's going to be one of the key things that we're going to have in our ability to react to an event before it takes place or as it's taking place. >> bob, over the weekend senior officials from the white house acknowledge that there was no credible threat. to see an alert like this come out from the state department as rare as it is, does that signal to you a change in intelligence or just an abundance of caution here? >> you know, i think it's really an abundance of caution based upon the event that is weave seen. the intelligence that we have is

frequently difficult to pinpoint on a specific location, and i think if you look at it from a practical standpoint, the telegraphing of bad things to come is really predicated on the evidence that we see in front of us. the mali attack, there was just another suicide bombing in egypt in the sinai today earlier today. of course, we have the russian airline incident. a lot of these events that are occurring so close together clearly indicate that there's heightened tension look and around the world and, you know, and popular tourist locations and places where these jihadists and other groups have access to without being impeded. you know, travellers there have to be mindful of that. it is a tense situation. i think the russian airline incident still heightens the concerns we have about airline travel. at least that travel which is coming from abroad. we see some of the tactic that is were used in sharm el sheik

that are inferior. we have to see that these governments are really taking the efforts that they need to to protect the public. >> all right, bob. we appreciate your time this morning and michelle caruso cabrera, our chief international correspondent. you will stay with us, but let's bring into the conversation, former white house middle east policy advisor, ambassador mark beginsberg who joins us on the phone. ambassador, give us your observations of the events overnight and how that changes the conversation that we were expecting to have today about coordination between the united states and france as we fight isis. >> there's no doubt that president hollande is here on an important diplomatic mission that is attempting to create a coalition with the russians, but, of course, part of the headache here is that the turkish shootdown of the russian plane is going to complicate mr. hollande's mission when he travel from washington to

moscow. creating a coalition that the french want is not going to be easy here in washington because the french want to have an aggressive all encompassing effort to try to destroy isis, and the president is incrementally approaching this battle against isis. he is not prepared to put boots on the ground. he is not prepared to significantly increase our exposure in the region other than to increase u.s. air force deployment. what's missing from this is it almost resembles a certain timidity to get further out front than neither mr. putin or mr. hollande. >> as we hear the white house continue to either stay the strategy that it's already laid out or intensify the infrastructure that it already has in flas, we should ask what do we have to show for nearly 500 days of air strikes in that region? >> well, unfortunately, not much because isis still controls significant sponsored territory.

still controls bracca. it stilz controls mosul. the iraqi army has yet to mobilize sufficiently to be able to take on ramadi. while the kurds have managed to put the united states support to siege sinjar which is an important junction en route highway 47 between racca and mosul. the fact of the matter is that after 6,700 air -- 75% of those sordis come back with their bombs still intact because the president refuses to deploy forward air traffic spotters on the ground. that's the problem. that's why we do not have more success because the president refuses to put additional -- a few more boots on the ground to accomplish the mission than is necessary. >> ambassador, talk for a moment if you can about the strategic importance of turkey. we don't talk about turkey a

lot, but from everything i read it's key to having a sustained success in middle east policy for the west. the fact that turkey is now clashing with russia was not apparently on the same page with russia before russia wra started these air strikes over syria. what should we expect to develop from that relationship going forward? >> this is the witch's brew of what the problem is in this battle in syria. the president of turkey and his part the akp that just won power are dead set of keeping assad in power in sear extra, and the russians have a completely contrary objective. right there there's a diplomatic and political clash between mr. putin and the turkish president. the president and the turkish military have a priority to try to prevent the syrian kurds and the iraqi kurd from prevailing

and gaining territory as a means for helping to establish a kurdish state. while he pays lip service to the battle against isis, he is really, in effect, focused on preventing the kurds from gaining more support from the united states to achieve what the united states wants from the kurds and that is more support to defeat isis. if you can figure that out, be my guest because i'm having a hard time figuring that one out. the city of bruzels remains on high alert. julia chatterly has more as the manhunt continues. >> absolutely. a lot going on here in brussels, but for now nato has been meeting for the last 45 minutes. turkey called this meeting. it's their job to brief their

allies on precisely what happened today in their airspace as they say and why they felt the need to shoot this russian aircraft down. clearly what we've heard from russia wra is that they have a very different view of precisely what happened today. now, they will be talking here. the most important thing to realize is this is not the first altercation between these two countries in the last few weeks. what we've seen is two, in fact, believed violations of turkish airspace by russian jets. in one of those cases nato presented a statement condemning russia. now, the question is what do they decide to do today because the stakes are far higher. firstly, obviously in this case, a russian jet has been shot out of the sky, but the other thing, of course, is both nato and russia have an incentive here not to create further tensions because we've got warming relations and, of course, they want to present a united front in the fight against terrorism and the islamic state, so --

guys, back to you. >> julia, thank you for that. >> michelle, talking about the president's tone, harwood members of the juried the tone he took while he was in the far east versus today. i wonder if we might be hearing some wiggle room regarding rules of engagement or spotters that might make those more productive over time. that's certainly possible, and he is likely under criticism for looking not as strong, not as much of a leader as the last statement before today. as john pointed out, we're looking for a change in tonality. also, is there going to be any change in strategy? an extreme change in strategy? highly unlikely. full botts boo on the ground, very unlikely. many people believe that's why, in fact, hollande has never

actually called on the nato clause with demand that nato allies defend france and instead depending on the clause with the lisbon treaty and that allows members of the e.u. defend france. he knows if you are going to invoke nato, that means have you to get the united states involved. the president thus far isn't at this point. did something dramatic happen here today? unlikely at this point. there could be, as you say, some kind of escalation that might make it look like the united states is doing more to lead at this point. >> we are beginning to see some members of the white house press corps gather in the room. we might be getting a little bit closer to hollande and president obama taking the lecturn. john harwood is there. a lot of it has come on the back and regaining some of the earlier losses in the session. not necessarily a bullish tone to the markets by any means.

they're a partial ally on this subject, but this is a very, very difficult problem to solve. will the president be willing to put more boots on the ground and be more aggressive as ambassador begi ginsberg was saying he thought should be done. >> is it your sense, john that, there needs to be an end game in mind regarding assad before any

further cooperation can take place? can they start something and work that out as we move along? >> administration is saying we have to have a political process whose end game will be the removal of as wraud in order to defeat isis. the more syrian people that bashar al assad kills, the more isis recruits there will be. yes, the administration's position is he has to go, but, of course, that hes been the administration's position for a couple of years now. we have the red line that was marked on military action, although it did result in the agreement to destroy some of those chemical weapons. the stated position of the united states has not been achieved for skwit some time. this is part of the writ simple of the president from republicans as well as democrats like dianne feinstein who want

more urgency and more resources to this fight. >> is this just the president maintaining his commitment in this term to draw down military involvement rather than ramp it up? what do you think is behind this? >> well, it's clear from the beginning of the time when president obama came on the stage that his inclination was that the intervention that george w. bush had launched in the middle east was awhat he called a dumb war. he said he is not all wars, but he is against dumb wars. i think his commitment to not repeating that mistake has contrained his policy. has it constrained it too much? that's the question on the table. with more effective action, have prevented the rise of isis.

>> it's whether they justify a shift in strategy to take more risks. you have the -- not just the paris attacks, but the attacks in mali, and the clear concern and fear on the part of the american people to this situation? how does he deal with that? does he stay the course. he clearly thinks or asserted that he believes his policy is the right one, but it's pretty hard to convince americans it's been effective at this point. >> when john talks about that criticism and those alleged missteps, you couple that with what some have said is the president's increasing isolation regarding refuse swrees, at least, in this country.

>> we've got to make sure we stay strong in the region. >> we have to work with the french to maintain if not actively pursue fighting against the isis. if we step back, we're going to inherit the problems. i think nobody here wants to have to react to situations where we can prevent them. we need strong leadership to insure that the threat that is we see occurring in europe and occurring elsewhere in the middle east don't find themselves here to a greater extent to know that we are here. that takes leadership. we've got to be very aggressive about that.

>> for taking down that -- to what degree do we take that seriously, and how does that stop? how do we stop being counter productive as a global force? >> that is the complicating issue right here, and i think that's what what president hole danned e and president obama would be discussing. we do need the coordination between our allies. this, again, is not uniquely an american problem. this is a problem for all the nations in europe. and really all the free nations have to look at this. there are a lot of people complicity in what happens from the middle east and who benefits from what for what reason, and we're not going to get everybody on the same page, but we do have to get everybody on the same page when it comes to battling the near-term threats even if we can't agree on what the longer term strategies are. it's the near term threats that we have to look at today.

it's a knowing complicated issue. we have to find the commonalties, and i think what we have to find right now is the one which is focused on how we battle isis. >> we're going to be paying a lot more attention to that in the days to come. >> absolutely. it's been one of the key issues. energy in that region has been something that has been used by the islamic state. we know they control wells. they control natural gas. there's actually been extensive reporting that that's brought them an incredible amount of revenue. some of that has been done with complicity by assad who needs access to that energy in order to run the country in what remains the country within his

control. that's an incredibly complicated situation. not just because of turkey's dependence on russian natural gas, but the fact that it brings revenue to the rebels and assad has to deal with them on one level while he fights with them on another. you highlight another critical question earlier, carl, about what do you do with as wraud at this point? is it crucial to decide now what is the end game with assad, or do you just put that aside is it going to force it on that question. can you push them to do some kind of political transition, force political transoigs assad in some way.

it will get a lot more of the allies at this point says, because they're not. a lot more of those fighting in syria with air strikes on the same page. >> michelle. of course, the u.s. already has sanctions on russia and there has been some suggestion albeit the talk of how unfeesable that it may be, that they're asking for relaxing of sanctions. what's the likelihood of that happening? >> that wouldn't surprise me at all. i think russia would use every single asset that hz t has at this point or every single that it could in order to reduce the financial suffering that they have as a result of the sanctions. europe has been ease eager, actually, to try to bring an end to them at this point because when you talk to the europeans, they're far more likely to say, look, we have to get involved with russia and you're going to have to work with russia at this point. far more than the united states has been willing to say at this point. >> there's the vice president making his way into the room.

>> all of this is to deal with the threat that remains, but there's the existing threat that paris is under that the lockdown that belgium is under. i assume that that's going to be discussed as well. >> we have two presidents walking into the room right now. let's take a listen in. >> this is the joint news conference. frez president francois hollande and president obama. let's listen in. >> president hollande, it has been an honor to welcome to you the white house before in happier times than this, but as americans we stand by our friends in good times and in bad no matter what. on behalf of the american people, i want to once again express our deepest condolences to you and all of the people of