news out of denmark and the blizzard. >> "inside politics" with john king starts right now. president obama asked congress for new war powers but promises there will be limits. >> i'm convinced that the united states should not get dragged back into another prolonged ground war in the middle east. >> many liberals don't trust that promise and some republicans say it's one the president can't keep if he wants true victory. >> he continues to look at this as a counterterrorism effort when, in fact, there's a war underway. >> what do the 2016 republican contenders think? >> you see the president taking vows saying that he has terrorism on the run. >> oh, maybe they should just stop going to london. >> purnt on that one as well. >> vaccines are an issue.

"inside politics," the biggest stories by the best reporters now. welcome to "inside politics" i'm john king. we have julie pace of the associated press, atlantic's molly ball and john martin of "the new york times". >> president obama and the members of his national security team, four former senators all of his careers anchored by anti-war thinking. side by side. more remarkable, they were there because the president-elected on a promise to end two exhausting costly overseas war asking congress for new war-making authority in the middle east. >> i'm optimistic that it can win strong bipartisan support and that we can show our troops and the world that americans are united in this mission. >> so far though the bipartisan skepticism. liberals complaining the request

lacks the promise against mission creek. they promise his words and deeds just isn't tough enough, they say, to destroy the islamic state. >> the fact of the matter is and for the past six years the administration's consistent dithering has made the world less not more safe. >> julia pace, sometimes in washington if both sides are mad, that means you've found a sweet spot, the middle. not so clear in this case. now you have to put language, congress has to pass something. >> absolutely. i think it says a lot where we are right now. people at the white house that i talk to are happy that there are very few lawmakers who are adamantly opposed to this. i'm definitely not going to vote for anything. you have republicans who disagree with this for one reason, democrats who disagree for totally another reason. how you bridge that divide i think is going to be very difficult. no one is going to end up with something that they like, it's just a matter of where the white house decides to move on this. do they want to tighten up the language, make it more restrict tough or move to republicans and

leave it open ended. again, it's hard to imagine that this president would want to do. >> the loudest critics so far are the democrats who have been calling for this for a long time, like tim cain for example. and then the hawks in the republican party and then devout part at this sanction in the middle. it leaves a lot of middle to figure out where we want to go. >> congress has been saying since this action began, wait a sec, we want a say in this. democrats wanted to say in order to limit it. republicans wanted to say in order to expand the mandate. the white house is saying, fine, see what you can do since you want to weigh in. perhaps it will be most effective as a reverse psychology now that they've given congress what they said they wanted, congress doesn't seem to want it. >> the dog has fallen apart. >> exactly. >> the bigger point here that's important is it does seem like that congress at least has the opportunity now to assert itself in war-making policy which they've seen at the executive

branch in the last 30 years or even longer than that. for those of us who are skep at this call of government, there are some escape hatches on this. this is not that tight of a resolution. i think if you look at it, it will undo the '02 resolution that okayed the iraq war but not the '01 resolution. >> it says al qaeda and its affiliates, which you can defy loosely. that's one of the complaints. republicans say we want more specificity on what you will do, not what you won't do. define the enemy more clearly, some want to say define let's do ground troops. wait a minute, this language is vague. you don't take away 2001. you're asking us to do something but you or your successor can do what you want. >> what's interesting is the biggest escape hatch is obama is currently acting under the 2002

resolution. he can continue to do that. the 2002 resolution, as we all remember, is the resolution that hillary clinton voted for and obama opposed and said that was the big distinction between he and hillary clinton in the 2002 campaign. it is amazing to think that this president is going to act under a resolution that he won the democratic nomination. >> to your point about the 2002 debate, anybody who wants to run for higher office or keep running has to be mindful of the fact that votes that look pretty safe and pretty smart, #hillaryknowsbest did not turn out that way down the road. what happens in 2016? we'll watch elizabeth warren, we'll watch bernie sanders. nothing against them but hillary seems to have a bit of a lead over there. more interesting republican race. listen to rand paul here. he says the president has it all wrong. this is part of his solution. >> i think the only way this battle ultimately is won is with troops on the ground. they need to be arab troops.

they need to be iraqis. they need to be kurds. >> aren't there iraqis and kurds? isn't that's what's happening inside iraq? isn't that what's happening? >> he's not saying a lot. no one said much specific last week as this rolled out. marco rubio was perhaps the most specific saying, you know, it's unprecedented for a president to try to limit himself and he would want to get rid of those limitations. ted cruz asked for something in there about arming kurds which the u.s. is already doing. the potential candidates are trying to feel out the ground but not a lot of specifics. >> before you jump in, let's bring ted cruz into the equation. some politicians think if the president talked about this differently it would make a difference. >> when you have an administration that will not you thor -- utter the words radical islamic terrorists, you have an administration that can not defeat radical islamic

terrorists. >> i get the argument and it's a fair debating point. without taking sides, should the president be more descriptive in his description of the enemy. if the president came out and said radical islamic terrorist, do they think that isis would surrender? >> i think what we're seeing, you know, is that these issues, foreign policy issues, are going to be a much bigger deal in 2016 in the republican primary than they were in 2012. they already are. how tricky this ground is for rand paul because he does not have a lot of company there in the noninterventionist wing in the primaries. we could see a replay in the 2012 debrats where ron paul was alone on the stage getting attacked from all sides. a republican party wanted a much more aggressive posture. >> my question is can they get away with saying this president is getting it wrong without being specific about things they would clearly do different? not just in their words. >> it's hard to see that.

that's sort of one reason that you saw marco rubio step out a little bit this week and say that i know more about this stuff than any of my potential opponents in the field. >> just as a practical matter, this resolution that obama wants them to vote on is into three years. that takes them into presidency. if you are running for president this is something you will be saddled with. you have to take a stand on this one way or the other. >> being president being critical isn't good enough. jeb bush has a big foreign policy speech in the week ahead. we'll watch what he says about this. everybody sit tight. next, call it the london curse. republican presidential contenders cross the pond hoping to make a splash and instead make a mess. politicians say the darndest things. can you say february and yolo. >> deadline for signing up is february -- febru -- that's not right. man, february 15th. >> thanks, obama.

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in presidential politics, we're talking about the london curse. christie stumbled on the vaccine question. >> we vaccinated ours but i understand parents need to have some measure in choice so that's the balance that the government has to decide. >> the london mayor says this is not only wrong, he says it's ridiculous. >> we need to have proper sort of facts to back that up. i have lived here for a long time. >> there are people here in london where people say they don't feel safe, the women, without walking around with vails. >> the no go zone debate will continue. wisconsin governor scott walker asked this question and using a metaphor, hunting. >> are you comfortable with the idea, do you believe in it? >> for me, i'm going to punt on that one as well. >> that's a question a

politician shouldn't be involved in one way or the other. i'm going to leave that up to you. >> is that a question the politician shouldn't be involved in one way or another? especially a republican politician trying to court the evangelical base and then be a republican candidate? >> the answer to that came 1/2 hour after he said that on twitter. he came down squarely on the side of if not creationism, some kind of divine role in man's presence and so i think he figured out he had to say something on it and he did so on twitter because, of course, it's a political issue because of the nature of the primary, the nature of american politics today. i don't quite get why these folks are going over to london except for they want to raise money from american expatriots. >> i don't understand. >> bankers over there. >> there's a money thing from ex-pats. there's a notional idea that they'll build up their foreign

policy credentials which is silly a trade mission is going to do that. if you're a republican, if you have any sort of half interest in politics, you know that english people, there's nothing they like to exoticise more is the american political party. if you sit down with an english journalist, they'll ask you about abortion, sarah palin. >> particularly if you are coming over with not much of an agenda, like a trade mission. >> romney didn't have much to say to. a lot of the politicians adhere to the fact that politics stops at the water's edge. so i think he was sort of hemmed in by that. you're right, you have to have something to say. >> that's also not controversial. most americans sort of believe in evolution either god only or guided -- >> is it a fair presidential question, evolution? he's a governor so he has to deal with what's in textbooks. presidents don't have to deal with what's in textbooks.

sometimes governors do, school members do, creationism, your views on stem cell research, this could be important to you. is it a presidential question or is the media trying to trip up a candidate? >> it's something that people care about. you can be more deft in the way you answer it whether the way you answer it is to deflect it or get me a serious discussion of the science, and i think that's why these candidates keep getting tripped up is because this is an uncontrolled atmosphere. this is the beginning of the presidential cycle and so they're still getting their feet wet, so to speak. they're getting used to the kinds of uncontrolled situations and we see candidates who haven't been on that big stage that much more and are getting tripped up by that. >> here's the irony, some sort of notebook stuff here, john, that you'll appreciate. the walker folks did not want a lot of press attention on this trip. in fact, they saw what happened with christie. they worked to limit the availability of walker while he was over there. this was the only public event he had. it happened to be live

streaming. it was not until the last question that he got tripped up. he was fine the entire event. they saw the christie interview. they avoided press coverage. >> he's getting more scrutiny. what goes up in politics and he's getting more scrutiny. he's going up in the polls and the national political conversation. "the boston globe" and washington post is doing discussions. a lot of american voters might not know. scott walker graduated from college. does that matter? pro, con/plus, minus? >> i think it depends on how he explains it. it is a confusing story. i don't think that a lot of americans would say it completely disqualifies him. if you're running to be the president of united states, we talk about college education as qualification for a lot of jobs out there. there may be people who say a president should be one of them. >> it's a net negative.

working class hero, you're not going to college. therefore, those who do care about it, it's going to be in a negative sense. is it going to be a deal breaker? probably not. some things i heard from republicans out there, they wonder why he never went back and finished. he's had a lot of time. >> he's going to have to explain that a lot of people who have been elected and re-elected think i have answered all of the biographical questions. we learned about george w. bush's dui late in the campaign. he has to answer why. is it risky for the democrats to try to make an issue of it? maybe an individual voter might say, that bothers me. others might say, that's fine. >> you love that. he'll love that. >> he's self-styled mr. authenticity. he brings a packed lunch to the office every day. sits in the stands at lambeau. he'll use that to attack the liberal media and democrats. >> he buys his clothes off -- >> cultural elites don't get working class america. >> do you go to kohl's, pete, for your coats and jackets?

>> not lately. >> even though he went to yale and harvard they tried to say george w bush was not the sharpest tool in the shed. >> rand paul didn't graduate from college. he went on to medical school. >> transparency is the best solution for walker here. he has to do an interview and do availability, explaining what actually happened, but also what he tells his two sons about what happened and the example about that. that will be a fascinating thing. could it diffuse some of this? >> friends in college at that time said he had a job opportunity, he needed to take it. if he wants to be president, he has to go through this again. like it or not, you get scrubbed if you want the big job. >> next tomorrow's news today including a carolina feud that's not about basketball or barbecue. how much money do you have in your pocket right now? i have $40, $21. could something that small make

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let's head around the "inside politics" table and ask our reporters to share a nugget or two. julia pace. >> on friday leon podesta had his last day. podesta is someone who is known as a guy who can speak to the clirch tons with some straight talk, coordinate her campaign,

coordinate outside groups. i'm told that even though he's going to be the campaign chairman he's going to have a very hands on day-to-day role. he's not going to be somebody who's just doing 30,000 foot strategic thinking. that's very important. >> who think some heads need to be banged. skippy who they call him. his alter ego when he gets angry. >> not a lot of people talking about this but there is a state out there shaping up to be the florida or michigan of the 2016 nominating calendar and that is north carolina. north carolina passed a statute last year that said they're going to go the week after south carolina, one of the first four states in the republican nominating process. south carolina votes on a saturday. that means north carolina will go on a tuesday. so three days after these first four states you could have a state with a lot of big media markets and a lot of voters right square in the middle of this nominating fight and the people i talked to in north carolina in the republican party there say they do not care at all if the republican national

committee penalizes them with delegates or whatever. they want the attention. they want to be square up front. remember, they usually go in may. it looks like they could be going in february in 2016. >> that would change a lot. >> they'll talk a little bit about this this session. >> that would make it interesting. >> john kasich, the governor of ohio is headed to south carolina this week. it's his first trip to an early primary state. he's someone who has the credentials to be an instant conte contender. just re-elected by 30 points and hasn't done a lot to sort of stoke the 2016 talks to date. this is part of this tour he's been doing all over the country of quacking for a balanced budget amendment. he claims this is not a gimmick. he's trying to do this. the more states that pass it, the more chances that have to consider it for a constitutional amendment. he's been out west so far. he's one to keep an eye on.

time is running out to decide. he hasn't decide what had to do. >> i talked to a couple of big new hampshire republicans this week who are interested who say, governor, we need to know. they're getting a lot of pressure. >> there was a flap in hillary land this week between two competing super pacs horsebacking senator clinton -- secretary clinton i should say. it really underscored the fact that as ever, john, as you know, in the clinton's orbit. with hillary close to the only game in town, the competing circles in democratic area, she is it. david brock who is at the center of this who resigned from the board of priorities usa which was the big obama super pac in 2012 and is shaping up to be the clinton super pack in 2016. the clintons are groveling to

him. he's on board to come back. >> peace in our time, john. >> i think i would call it datante at best. i'll close with this. mike lee put the party on the map when he defeated robert bennett. now the establishment is trying to get revenge. you might say trying to return the favor. as yet, no serious lead challenger has emerged for 2016. the senator has been working to quiet some of his business and establishment critics. i'm told several business leaders in the state, that's utah, making a push to convince john huntsman to return. he bombed as a gop presidential candidate in 2012. he's in washington most of the time and is host of a radio show for the bipartisan group no labels. he was a popular governor. i'm told some national establishment players now about to join their utah allies and try to push governor huntsman to get back home.

i'm skeptical. that's it for "inside politics." that's it for sunday morning. "state of the union" starts right now. terror hits denmark. isis threatens u.s. troops in iraq. and a former defense secretary says president obama made mistakes in the fight against terror. this is "state of the union." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. and good morning from washington. i'm jim accosta. following breaking news from denmark which is reeling from a terror attack. a gunman opened fire saturday at a cafe near a synagogue in copenhagen leaving two people dead. the gunman may have been inspired by the paris attacks. let's go to cnn's nic robertson who is in copenhagen. nic, are police confide