complete that triathlon alone but his brother in a raft behind him. >> he the heart to do that. that was incredible. you go make some great memories yourself. >> "inside politics" with john king starts right now. labor day weekend in a huge mid-term election year president obama wishes this was the big conversation. >> companies are investing, consumers are spending. >> the commander-in-chief's handling of world crises dominates the conversation in washington. >> i don't want to put the cart before the horse. we don't have a strategy yet. >> plus hillary clinton breaks her three week silence on ferguson. >> imagine what we would feel and what we would do if white drivers were three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as black

drivers. >> and two months to election day are republicans having the edge to control the senate. most battles are so close nothing is certain. "inside politics" the biggest story source by the best reporters now. welcome to "inside politics". i'm john king. thanks for sharing your sunday morning especially on this layer day weekend with us to share our reporting and insights. labor day weekend, 65 days to election day and it is world events not jobs or health care or immigration driving most of this debate here in washington. on thursday at the white house listen here as the president takes issue with reports he's close to authorizing strikes inside syria against isis leadership targets. >> we don't have a strategy yet. i think what i've seen in some of the news reports suggests

that folks are getting a little further ahead of where we're at than we currently are. >> we don't have a strategy yet. maggie, the tan suit got a lot of action on twitter but that part especially. now a lot of the president's critics were taking it out of context. he was answering a question about syria. he should know better than to say we don't have a strategy yet. why didn't he just say we're not there yet, we're looking at our options or you'll know when we know. >> yes to everything you should. he should know better. he was and the out of context. josh earnest did a tremendous amount of push back on this immediately after the press conference and even during the press conference. he was being asked a specific question about congressional approval about syria. but, yes, after an entire election was you didn't build that, somebody else built that four and other phrases that the

president has taken and used to cement a narrative he should know better. he was answering the question honestly but it didn't sound good and played into the sense that some of his critics have of a philanthropyforeign policy ad. this is not a situation though with easy answers. >> caution may be the right approach but communicating the caution he didn't get right. he was trying make the case sanctions against russia and putin are working but he said their response is violence, they are training the separatists in ukraine, they are paying for it. the critics are saying if that's happening where's the proof the sanctions are working. >> i'll defend the tan suit for late august. not totally inappropriate choice. part of the problem with the statement was that it was coming after a series of sort of public relations mishaps by the president. i was with the president at martha's vineyard when he came out and gave this moving statement about james foley.

he was at the golf course within ten minutes. that attract ad lot of blow back from a lot of different places not just the media but some democrats. this on top of that contributes to this narrative and it hasn't been -- it doesn't feel like the white house has been handling of it very well. >> the cart before the horse was a lot of the military leaders coming out and really scaring everyone and saying that isil or isis or whatever you want to call it is the worst thing they've ever seen, they got this funding. they are essentially operating the state. also in that way he's seem to mixed the message and what emerged was something more nuanced and reflective of what they are doing which is working on a strategy. >> striking to me that, you know, he understands the timing. he understanding the election is 60 days away when he was giving that statement and he tries to talk about good economic news that morning. he spend what 10 or 12 seconds

on it and then he focus on foreign policy and every question was either tough foreign policy and we'll get to this later or tough immigration choices. where is the president with his party as we hit labor day? >> what's interesting -- yes very good economic news over the last few weeks, stock market hitting a record. people don't believe it and people don't feel it. if you've seen anything over the last couple of weeks that's disheartening, not just that people are feeling bad it's that the median income in this country is lower than it was in 2000. when you're looking state by state at hourly wages, how they have decline over the last ten years, not just since 2008. teen economic news isn't going to break through. in fact that's a lot of if we want to call it about the malaise in this country is we're in an economy while it looks like we're moving, for most middle class folks they feel they are just trapped. >> legs feel tired. they have been treading water for a number of years. part of the foreign policy

debate, republicans say the president is too cautious. some say he's too timid. some veer away from what they would do if they were president. they say it's his fault and her fault meaning hillary clinton as we go forward. here's rand paul. you have rand paul and marco rubio in the same spot. rand paul says we're lucky mrs. clinton didn't get her way and the bristol-myers administration didn't bring about regime change. that new regime might well be isis. is that a fair criticism? >> i think that it is very hard to divorce what they are saying about foreign policy from the ultimate goal of beating her up for 2016. so this is not actually about the substance this is all about redirecting the anger, just as you saw from some of president obama's supporters after ferguson an effort to redirect some of the focus on 2016 towards hillary clinton, towards jeb bush, towards chris christie. you'll see this from republicans because they are trying to come up with whatever weak point they

can against her other than she's beatable and we can beat her. this is a way to do it. it is an issue on which she disagreed with him. hillary clinton wanted the not be more aggressive early on on what she called the moderate syrian forces. on a point where she's trying to get away from president obama a little bit the republicans are velcroing her back to him. >> that's right. their response her foreign policy or what they perceive to be her foreign policy says more about the republican field than secretary clinton herself. rubio is on one side. rand paul is on the other. they are trying to distinguish themselves as welby how they respond to her. >> there's this moment of anti-intervention sentiment. that's a lot of what's happening in the republican party. you have rand paul who frankly has sort of embraced that label more than he had been for a while and now with that "wall street journal" op-ed it's going forward. you have this debate within the

republican party but also in the left but morton right. >> to the point about hillary clinton as they try to get her armor as secretary of state what she thinks is a strength she made it a weakness, why did she wait so long. she waited nearly three weeks but when she did speak it was very powerful. she said as a mother she felt the pain of the brown family. she asked her largely white audience to look around the room. >> imagine what we would feel and what we would do if white drivers were three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as black drivers instead of the other way around. if white offenders received prison sentences 10% longer than black offenders for the same crimes. >> might we go into a

presidential campaign and rand paul -- >> i was going to say that. >> are traveling the country, telling their largely white audiences to think about this and think hard. >> yes. because if you look at what she said, you're right rand paul made very similar statement in his "time" magazine op-ed. he said if i were in michael brown's position and i was a 17-year-old i might mouth off at a cop too, the difference is i wouldn't end up dead because he would have bean white kid. i think this is pretty bold for hillary clinton to get out there and say this, we're not used to white politicians asking white people, white americans to put themselves in the place of african-americans. so she, of course, got a lot of flack from progressives particularly from waiting so lay it on i think a lot of the boldness of her statement. >> does it matter she waited? >> i don't think it did. i think that there were elements of the statement that were bold, elements of the statement that were also cautious. i agree with what she said about

trading places but she was careful not to offend anyone, she was careful about being clear about law enforcement as well which is a community that backed her in the past. at the end of the day, what good would it have done for her when this was all playing out or for the situation when this all was playing out for her to be another politician putting out a statement and if you look at the statements issued by a lot of politicians exception of rand paul op-ed which was different on race but for the most part everyone carved out a cautious space. ted cruz denounced arrests of reporters. >> people talked about militarization. >> i don't think anybody said it much other than rand paul. rand paul was bold because it was a challenge to his party. >> the test is after we get the investigations, after we see what happens in ferguson, do they carry this conversation into the next campaign and beyond. that's true test for all of them. up next battle for control of the senate and a guide map to the races that could decide the balance of power. but first this is priceless.

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welcome back. control of the senate is the big prize in this mid-term election year and two months out recognizes have a decent odds of getting six seats they need to gain the majority. what do you see here? see the states surrounded in

blue. ten of them are states held by democrats. these two here georgia and kentucky, republican held seats where democrats are making a run. republicans need a net gain of six. let's look at three on this labor day weekend. i'll start here in north carolina. democratic incumbent is kay haggen running against tom tillis. it's a classic swing state. president obama carried it once and lost it once. the immigration issue will be a big flash point in this race and others. this is one of the states where african-american turnout in the mid-term election year is critical to democrats. will she call in president obama at the end, kay haggen i think not but watch that dynamic there. another big one to watch is state of iowa. no incumbent. why is this important? remember, iowa is a blue state. it helped launch president obama. recent poll like so many of these races show a dead heat and iowa because it's so important in presidential politics it's a

star magnet, big names in both parties. remember if the republicans win the blue states that makes them feel much better about election day. lastly this is a red state, kentucky. why do the democrats want this one. mitch mcconnell is the republican leader and allison grimes his democratic opponent get the leader. even if the democrats lose the senate they want to end this election year by taking out mcconnell in kentucky. this could be the most expensive race this year or most expensive in history. maybe we'll see hillary clinton. in the end we'll see that. 65 days out. when you look at the map republicans think possibly what's the single biggest question when it comes to who controls the senate? >> single biggest question will be the turnout. i know that sounds trite. democrats really fundamentally believe that they and they

proved this in 2012 they say the enthusiasm gap that we see in the polls is not something that will translate on the ground if they can stop that. they say republicans may have the edge in the seats because these are red states, they may have the advantage in the polls when it comes to who is most excited to turn out, republicans. but we know who our people are. we know how to get them. we proved we can get them in 2010 and proved again in 2012. so it is going to be technology, which democrats say they have versus the president's low approval ratings which goes to the republicans benefit. >> you made an important point when you looked at the iowa poll that shows a dead heat. the president had a 20% approval rating. if that's a factor on election day, the democrat can't win iowa and if that's the case in new hampshire when you look at the big blue states they are going after -- what is the obama factor if ewell in the last 65 days? >> not good. to your point, this is why what

is happening right now in terms of the dominance of foreign policy, this is less of what mid-term races have fought over. i'm not sure how it will play. the fact there's none of of a republican wave is a huge help to democrats. these are surgically fought contests won by one that are candidate dependent in a lot of cases. if you do see the bottom dropout -- that's pretty bottom but if you see more of a bottom fall out in terms of obama its problematic. this is why iowa which is a democratic seed which a lot of democrats one iowa feel we should be able to hold on to this, the republican there is doing pretty well. >> also a legitimate question where obama can go in october. michigan maybe. new hampshire maybe. i know it's particularly heartbreaking for the white house can't go to iowa because that's a state he feels is very emotional tied to. i don't think based on those numbers you want him in iowa. that's a pretty striking thing.

i certainly -- i'm not sure. i think you'll see hillary clinton much, much more in demand. and there's a big question for 2016 for republicans which is they can win the senate without having to win any of these blue states. they can win in states that romney carried. if they are going to prove they are a force be reckoned with in 2016 they have to win in iowa and colorado. >> if you look at somebody like bruce braley and others like the issues they are running on, military, va, that's breaking through. the white house has been surprised about the issues that are breaking through. >> for a while, to your point about 2016 in addition to having been able to pick up certain states, the messaging overall, one of the issues that some republicans, scott brown has been running on is immigration. that's not helpful to the republican brand at all for 2016 and that's one of the things you'll hear democrats take

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let's go around the inside of our coffee table. keep you out ahead of the curve. >> two outside groups, republican groups crossroads gps

and the american action network did a survey that was reported by some of my colleagues showing that women view the gop as stuck in the past on policies. this infurriated a number of republicans who said they thought this was completely undermining they couldn't understand the purpose of this, this is at cross ends to what the gop is trying to do in the final couple of months of a very difficult mid-term and it felt to some people more like tushy covering as my children would say as opposed to anything that was productive or illustrative. >> tushy coverage. i like that. >> elizabeth warren the dream for progressives to run in 2016 for the white house. what is unclear about her is where she stands on foreign policy. she's made her bones on domestic policy. recently she made some statements on israel and hamas that have some progressives thinking that she sounds a

little bit like hillary clinton and some have even compared her to netanyahu. she essentially said israel has a right to defend themselves and in the question of civilian casualties she essentially said it's hamas' fault because they have put rocket launchers next to schools and hospitals. over these next weeks progressives looking to see what she will say on syria and isis. she's making a trip toiz in november looking very much to see what comes out of that. >> we keep hearing from folks where this republican wave is. when will it hit. such a bad year for democrats. the reality is when you talk to strategists out there, pollsters there's no wave. it's probably already happened. what's important to remember is republicans can still win control of the senate without a wave. what a wave gets them is eight to ten seats. what they need right now, we talked about surgically picking up seats, they need to win five of the closest nine races,

including mitch mcconnell and others. that's 55% of the closest races. what we've come to find every election is that you don't see it coming until election day but one side or the other almost always the races break disproportionately their way, 55%, 65%. that's more of the question than waiting for a wave. >> don't need a wave to win. >> that's right. >> watch race by race. >> as the white house wrings its hands whether to do the executive order on the mid-terms after the mid-terms keep your eye on the republican 2016 candidates. rand paul was in guatemala. he brought his political staff crew. governor chris christie is headed to mexico next week for a trade mission. already you see these 2016

potential republican candidates preparing for the balancing act that they know they have to deal with latino voters. they have to win the base republican voters in the primary and they got to find a way to stem the republican bleeding of latinos in the general. you want to keep an eye on that dynamic. >> you bury the lead. there's one drone rand paul likes. he took to it guatemala. let me close to with a footnote. republicans need a net gain of six. georgia and kentucky were two races that entered the cycle. now kansas is on that list. you wouldn't think republicans would be worried about kansas but pat roberts beat a tea party challenger in the primary. that was supposed to be it. but republican strategists see a close race and furious at roberts and his campaign team and leaning on his kansas colleague jerry moran runs the campaign organization, leaning on him to do more including sending in information rip up the roberts campaign staff. now you have the republican super p.a.c. community which has

to make some tough calls on where to spend money thinking they may have to take some money away from somebody else and invest it in kansas. "state of the union" with candy crowley starts right now. ♪ weighing the options to confront aggression. both traditional and unimaginable. putin's power push in ukraine and a brutal march of isis. today britain's prime minister rings in. >> what we're facing in iraq now with isil is a greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known before. >> and the u.s. president tries to muffle the drums of war. >> but there's no point in me asking for action on the part of congress before i know exactly what it is that is going to be required for us to get the job done. >> isis, the job, what it takes to get it done with the top democrat