that's it for "reliable sources." "state of the union" starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

the u.s. military on alert as isis threatens america. this is "state of the union." the senate homeland security chairman on isis hitting the heartland, and the point man for the u.s. fight against the terror group in the middle east, jeb bush's stunning admission, and remembering victory in europe 70 years on. good morning from washington. i'm jim sciutto. u.s. military bases today on heightened alert due to concerns over potential terror attacks by isis supporters here in the u.s. the fbi says hundreds perhaps thousands of isis sympathizer's may be here in the homeland right now. joining me now is senator ron johnson, chairman of the senate homeland security committee, and senator johnson thank you for joining us on this mother's day. >> good morning, jim. >> we appreciate having you here. we've talked a lot in this fight against isis about the wisdom of having u.s. boots on the ground in iraq. today you have isis threatening

military bases here in the u.s. is the u.s. the new front line in the fight against isis? >> well, we're certainly vulnerable, and this is all part of isis's strategy of conveying a winner's message, to try and inspire more types of acts of violence as we saw in texas last sunday. so from my standpoint, i think the best strategy that the u.s. could employ to defeat this is to actually defeat isis in iraq and syria so that the reality actually is conveyed that this is not a winning organization it is a losing organization because jim, as long as they're not losing as long as these individuals who might be drawn to jihad don't perceive isis as a losing organization they'll be perceived as winning and they'll continue to inspire this type of jihadist activity and extreme violence even here in america. >> i wonder looking at the response to this texas shooting the shooter there, alton simpson, was on law

enforcement's radar screen. they had him under monitoring. they'd even given his name as someone interested in this prophet muhammad cartoon event. and yet he was able to get through. thankfully responded to quickly by law enforcement on the scene. now the fbi is going back and taking another look over at everyone on that radar screen to see if they missed something else. i wonder as you look at this do you consider this an intelligence failure and are you confident that the fbi, law enforcement here have the resourced to track those perhaps hundreds maybe more in the u.s. who have sympathies with isis? >> well, one of the witnesses in our hearing called jihad 2.0 has been trying to assess, you know, how big of a following does isis have here in the u.s., and he estimated that the best probable guess, 46,000, maybe as high as 90,000 overt isis support accounts on twitter. twitter's starting to shut those things down. but consider maybe 90,000 people

drawn to this barbaric ideology. we've got a very large haystack. we're looking for a needle in it. and of course the fbi had an informant talking to mr. simpson 330 times. they spent about $132,000 to pay that informant, got a conviction for mr. simpson lying to the fbi, but he's placed on probation and he's tweeting about activities later on. how can we track so many people that may be drawn to this? that's where i go back to my main point, that our number one strategy needs to be we need to actually accomplish the goal president obama stated degrade and ultimately defeat isis, the sooner the better. >> 330 conversations, and that sounds like a pretty serious failure here to have that much contact and still let him buy those guns buy the body armor and carry out this attack. >> jim, the problem is what do you do with the not guilty yet? we do have laws and a constitution, and it's extremely difficult for law enforcement officials when you might have

tens of thousands of sympathizers, and how do you track them all? the fbi has less than 15,000 field agents and all the field agents aren't concentrating solely on the threat of islamic terror, and there are all kinds of domestic crimes the fbi has to trace and track and keep track of, so again, you have to go back to the root cause, and right now the root cause is that isis was allowed to rise from the ashes of al qaeda in iraq. we are not adequately defeating them. we're not conveying to the extent that they are weakened. but as long as they control territory, as long as they have this caliphate that's going to continue to inspire this type of activity, which is why we've got to get back to that root cause and we actually need to defeat isis. >> you have been on the record about isis's ability with social media, it's really twofold here, they're very slick and know how to talk to young people to get them to fight, but it's also the way they use encryption, the way they message to people. they may start public but they go private in a way that is

impossible really for law enforcement to track. you said to our own wolf blitzer earlier this week we're logs the capability of monitoring this to keep ourselves safe. what does the u.s. intelligence committee do about that if they moved to communication that cannot be tracked? >> well, there is a real misperception that the federal government has perfect knowledge, that we're just providing surveillance or conducting surveillance on everybody who might be a subject and we have perfect knowledge. and individuals engaging those communities are pretty surprised the individuals in those communities believe we have perfect information. we don't. the bottom line is people do need to be alert. if you see something you do have to say something. and as americans we also need to realize this threat is real and our first line of defense is an effective intelligence-gathering capability combined with a robust continuous monitoring and oversight of our intelligence agencies to make sure that we're not violating americans' civil liberties. i think the demagoguery and the

revelations of edward snowden have done great harm to our ability to gather that information. >> let's talk about that. you mentioned our ability. the federal appeals court ruled this past week that national security agency's the nsa's bulk collection of phone metadata is illegal. you have a debate, a vote coming up on the renewal of the patriot act. you have competing bills in the senate and the house. as you have this problem, really less ability to track with all the nsa's capability you have terrorists modifying their behavior their communication to get around that. how does this affect the debate on capitol hill? is it more likely that the patriot act will be as it is as it stands be renewed, or do you see more restrictions being placed on the intelligence community's ability to track these kinds of communications? >> i hope the reality of the situation, the reality of the threats we face will actually play a big part in terms of how congress responds. it's important to note that the second circuit court of appeals

did not rule it unconstitutional, they just said it wasn't being applied properly based on how the law was written so we have to take a careful look at the way we write these quite honestly very complex laws and always keep in mind that these threats are real and let me repeat our best line of defense, trying to keep this nation safe and secure is an effective intelligence-gathering capability with robust congressional oversight. this is what should give people comfort. protecting civil liberties isn't a partisan issue. from the extreme right to the extreme left and everywhere in between we all want to guard and protect american civil liberties, but we also have to keep this nation safe and secure. >> senator johnson, chairman of the homeland security committee thanks very much for joining us this sunday. >> have a great day. hitting isis at its source is clearly just as critical as protecting the homeland. for more on the u.s. efforts to combat the militant group overseas in iraq and syria i'm joined by brett mcguirk,

president obamas point man on the coalition to counter isis. thank you for joining us. we talk about the front lines being over there, and they are, but now you have u.s. bases under threat here. is this the new front line in your view in the fight against isis? >> well jim, look, the threat of the challenge is enormous. and it's really something we've never seen before. i'll give you some numbers. we have about 22,000 foreign terrorist fighters have gone into syria and iraq to fight with isis and affiliated groups. about 3,700 of those are from western nations. we've had about 180 americans have tried to travel to iraq and syria and just in the last few weeks 15 americans, the justice department has filed charges for supporting isis. so this is a multifaceted international federal, state, local challenge. that's why we put together a multifaceted, multilayered approach to combat it. since september we built the global coalition to combat isis, and myself and general allen, we have been to about 25 capitals over the last six months, and we were in paris when the "charlie

hebdo" attack was ongoing. we've been to ottawa canberra, brussels. we were in amman shortly after captain qasaba, the brave pilot, was brutally assassinated by isis. >> jordanian pilot. >> jordanian pilot. >> in ever single capital we've seen the populations respond with resiliency and the government responds against isis. and we have been clear from day one, it's going to take years, and it's a long-term challenge and we have not seen it before and it's going to take a long time to defeat them. >> one of the ironies here, the harder the u.n, u.s. and coalition hits them on the ground there, the more they are spurred into action over here because they want to draw blood, in effect, do they not, on the u.s. homeland? how do you counter that? they want to show their strength and they want to draw blood here. how do you counter that? because the danger almost rises here as the campaign becomes more intense there. >> that is what they are trying to do and i agree entirely with senator johnson, we have to defeat them in the heart of their falsely proclaimed

caliphate in iraq and syria. and we're doing that. we are taking back territory from them particularly in iraq. i was just talking to our commanders this morning. and in anbar province now we have thousands of tribal fighters organizing to fight isis. and that's going to be ongoing over the coming weeks. 1,100 of them volunteered just two days ago in anbar province near fallujah. and as they are defeated in iraq and syria, they will try to inspire attacks around the world. we've been seeing them do this here and they're trying to do it all around the world. >> sydney, other places as well. you talk about gaining territory back. i want to show you and the viewers a map of isis-controlled and isis-influenced areas in iraq. this is today. the red lines are under isis control. the orange lines under isis influence. and i want to show you the battlefield three months ago there. two months ago, rather. it's not a big change. and we have seen -- i can't really identify the change there, and we have seen some back and forth. yes, coalition forces, iraqi forces gaining back tikrit.

ramadi in contention. baiji, the key oil refinery, had been taken back from isis but isis is now penetrating there again. it looks like a see-saw from abroad. where are the victories? how do you quantify success on the ground? >> first, this is a long-term campaign. it's not going to be 20-yard pass plays down the field. it's three yards, har yards, every single month, month to month, and it's going to take years. i was in iraq 11 months ago to the day today when mosul fell. and when isis was a military force able to mass and maneuver force all around iraq and syria, the capital of baghdad was under threat. and we responded immediately and beginning in august with our air strikes we really began to significantly degrade their capabilities. if you look at the map overall, we've taken back about 25% of the populated areas that isis was controlling back then. but it's going to take time. we're building up iraqi security capabilities. we have thousands of american special forces and trainers built trying to reprofessionalize the iraqi forces and they're now getting out on the front lines.

ramadi jim, was under threat from january 1st, 2014. isis moved into ramadi six months before mosul. that capital has never fallen. the tribes there, the locals are fighting they're going to continue to fight and now we're helping them. and as he organize the anbari tribes as we're starting to do we're going to push back -- the sunni tribes in anbar we're going to push isis out of those populated areas in anbar. but again, jim, i just have to stress it's a long-term charge challenge, it's a long-term campaign the focus is iraq and syria but it's also global. we have to cut down the foreign fighter networks we have to cut down the financing networks we have to counter them in the messaging sxas that's why we have this global coalition of 62 nations to do that. but all these nations in every capital they understand this is a long-term multiyear challenge that will be with us for a long time. >> years, not months. i spoke earlier this week you mentioned training of both iraqi forces but also syrian rebels, moderate rebels, that is just beginning. a company-sized group announced by secretary of defense carter this week, 90 troops. i spoke earlier this week with the president of the syrian opposition council. here's what he had to say about

u.s. support. we'll play that clip now. >> as i mentioned, we have the capability and the ability to fight against the terrorism and against the terror led by the syrian regime but we need to include much more fighters from the fsa in this program and we need to have it much more faster. >> he described u.s. support earlier in that interview as too slow and too small. they want thousands of fighters. they're getting 90, maybe another 90. how does that chait military calculus on the ground? >> well, the training just started last week, as secretary of defense carter noted. we have about 3,400 volunteers now that we are in the process of vetting, and we hope to have 3,000 trained by the end of the year. 5,000 trained 12 months from now. but you know it's going -- it has to run in due course. congress when it passed legislation, be very careful with the vetting and make sure we have moderate fighters ready to fight isis on the ground. we had a very good conversation with president khoja at the

state department about what we're trying to do. and in geneva this week my colleague the special envoy for syria daniel rubenstein will be in geneva with the u.n. with the syrian opposition coalition to try to reinvigorate a political process to wind down the syrian civil war. and thus far the assad regime has not agreed really to negotiate in good faith. we hope now with the changing conditions on the ground we can have an owning. because we have to have a political solution to that conflict. but as we do we're going to train up the moderate opposition forces. we hope to have about 3,000 by the end of the year. but it start last week, jim, and that's promising it's finally getting under way. >> brett mcguirk, thank you for joining us on this sunday. >> thank you. are we less safe now than we were in the days just after 9/11? the former house intelligence committee chairman and the nation's first secretary of homeland security, they are both with me right after this. (vo) around age 7, the glucose metabolism in a dog's brain begins to change. (ray) i'd like to see her go back to her more you know social side. she literally started changing.

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welcome back. with me now former governor tom ridge. he was the first homeland security secretary for the u.s. he's now ceo of ridge global which deals with security and crisis management. we also have former congressman mike roger, the one-time chairman of the house intelligence committee, two very strong minds on national security and counterterrorism. governor ridge, if i could begin with you. compare the threat to the homeland today, the terror threat to the homeland today to when you had your job just after 9/11. are we safer today or less safe? >> well unfortunately, when it comes to the nature of the threat we're in much more serious circumstances today than after 9/11. remember back then we thought about al qaeda and afghanistan and pakistan and a few other places. we've seen al qaeda has metastasized it's now a global scourge, and you have the

ascendancy of isil. the combination of those two groups their appeal to the loan wolves and we've seen them acting in belgium and france and canada and the united states. so the threat from the nature of the threats are far more complicated and serious today than on september 12th, 2001. >> mike rogers that's a remarkable and alarming statement. what do we do about it? >> well first of all, you have to get after the safe havens. think about two problems. we have some 20 al qaeda affiliates. some of them relatively new, some old. they just opened up one in india. so these are all new threat vectors that we have to put in that threat matrix. and they have big swaths of ungoverned space in which they claimed to train and recruit and plan operations. >> libya, yemen. >> and getting worse. and you have isil, who has all of eastern syria, a good chunk of iraq, and candidly very little disruption activity to their operations.

so they have this global reach with social media that we never saw before, including 2001, that is having an impact and what you saw happen in the united states that is exactly the plan that they had for terrorist activities in western countries. >> let me ask you. you say to go after the safe havens. there's already significant u.s. military operation in iraq. you have training of moderate rebels in syria. are you talking about u.s. military action in a place such as libya? i mean there's limited strikes in somalia and yemen, but are you talking about military intervention in these places necessarily? >> we don't need boots on the ground unless this thing continues to spill over. the longer it goes the higher risk it is that the united states will have to interfere, unless you're willing to accept what we had happen in texas. now, fortunately, it was not successful. i would argue, if you think about this, there is an investigation against isis possibilities in all 56 offices of the fbi.

at what point does this boil to the point where we decide we are going to have to be serious about stopping the fact that the people who are getting self-recruited in the united states believe that isil is winning in the middle east, because that's the message they are receiving on social media, despite this notion that there is a large-scale effort, it really isn't very accurate which is what we can help with that. the intelligence isn't great. we can help a lot with that. and we will need some special capability soldier involvement if we're going to make sure that our allies are more impactful. all of that can happen without boots on the ground. >> governor ridge, in the case of texas shooting alton simpson, the main gunman he was on the government radar screen. they had an informant speaking to him, senator johnson said a few moments ago, 330 times. so they were already looking at him in a way they might be looking at other potential sympathizers. was that a major law enforcement failure, and do you have confidence the fbi has the resources to take a harder look

at the hundreds, perhaps thousands of others who may or may not go that way? >> there are two very important questions here, and i think you raise them very effectively. one, this individual was given probation by a judge in spite of perjuring and lying and we had our eyes on him, but at what point in a democracy do we say we are so fearful and you are so suspect, we are very very concerned, but we don't quite have the ability to take you off the street. that is something we're going to have to figure out as we go -- >> legally -- >> -- and deal with this. we have to think about it now. it's in a democracy. it's a lot more complicated than people think. if the fbi had the resources, no they don't, but i'm not sure that necessarily means we've got to double or triple the number of people in the fbi. one of the challenges we've had since 2001 is integrating the knowledge and the capabilities that the fbi has and blend them with the state and local police -- with local law enforcement agencies. there's always been some

institutional reluctance. there's an inertia -- pardon me? >> this was supposed to be corrected after the 9/11 commission, this kind of intelligence sharing and information -- >> i think the intelligence sharing is good. it's not exactly where it needs to be. the fact of the matter remains that i talked to commissioner davis in boston and he was awear of the tsarnaev brothers after the bombs went off. now, i'm not saying that the fbi did -- should have advised him then, but one wonders. actually i am saying what happens if you in advance of that incident advise the commissioner of these two suspected terrorists you've got -- it's not like russia picks up the phone every day and calls us and said look we think you've got some terrorists in your midst, how are the wife and kids. that doesn't happen very often. >> there was a woman, yeah. >> the burden on the fbi is too enornlgs too great. they can't do it by themselves. hopefully under jim comey and these terrorism task forces they will begin to share more information and call upon the state and locals to do some of

the leg work and keep their eyes on some of these folks. >> mike, you have a background in the fbi. i wondered, do we raise the expectation unrealistically that u.s. law enforcement can stop every attack like this? it's easy to carry out -- you don't need 19 hijackers and flight school to carry out a lone wolf attack like this, you just need to buy a couple guns, right? walk -- as these gentlemen did or any other target. is it unrealistic to tell americans we can keep you safe 100% of the time from this kind of threat? >> anybody that tells you they can keep america safe 100% of the time is not telling the truth or doesn't understand what they're talking about. >> absolutely. >> they are at their limit. and what we find even in our foreign intelligence service friends and their domestic law enforcement national agencies britain, others they are at water's edge right now. they can't keep up with the volume. which is again why the strategy can't be if you treat this as a law enforcement issue that you're going to deal with we are going to lose.

we are going to lose badly. if we treat it for going after a war that has declared war against the united states in a way that doesn't put troops on the ground which we can, i think we'll have a much more successful effort at stopping violence here at home. without it, you can't -- you cannot take those two things apart and expect success. >> i think the fbi is doing as best as they can. the recent appeals court decision is probably going to make it more difficult. we have taken one more tool off the table for them to use to try to track folks in syria calling back into the united states. the more we make it more difficult, the higher likelihood it is we're going to have an event we're all going to be sorry for. >> governor ridge, you recently celebrated great moments of civility in american history. washington political scene not particularly civil today. i wonder if this issue, counterterror, fighting extremism, giving law enforcement the tools they need

to do so is that an issue that could bring people to the table in a more cooperative bipartisan way? >> i want to thank you. we did celebrate civility. allegheny college in western pennsylvania celebrated police chief kevin murphy giving his badge to john lewis in reconciliation in 2013 after the beating that john lewis took in montgomery, alabama. a very powerful notion. it's a notion that i think we need to understand. there are causes and issues that are bigger than either party, and if we can't rally behind our intelligence community, the law enforcement community, and don't get me wrong, i don't think the fbi can do it. i know they go to work hard every single day to try to keep us safe and secure. i don't want my remarks to be misinterpreted. but they can't do it alone. and we really need to integrate their capability along with the dedicated professionals we have at the local level. that's what kind of drove the company -- this is a global scourge and we're going to be at this for a long time.

and we need the congress of the united states between now and the end of the year to deal with that opinion that we got with regard to section 215 of the patriot act. it would be irresponsible to eliminate that. but i think the court gave us a very good pathway. you need to connect the information you seek with a specific request, and i think it would pass muster. but then we're going to have to deal with first and fourth amendment challenges as well. >> we'll know next month. thanks very much governor ridge. mike rogers. as always, great to have you on. and happy mother's day. >> thanks. >> who's running for president in 2016? more like who isn't. our political panel on the field that just keeps growing when we come back.

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just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern.

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i am a candidate for president of the united states of america. >> i am carly fiorina, and i am running for president. >> i am ben carson, and i'm a candidate for president of the united states. >> i am announcing that i'm running for president of the united states. >> i am putting myself forward as a candidate for president of the united states of america. >> i announce my candidacy for president of the united states. >> so the official 2016 republican presidential field is now up to six. half of those announcements from

just this past week. joining me now around the table, kevin madden a republican strategist worked for mitt romney's political campaign. cnn political reporter sarah murray. and steve mcmahon. he's worked on dozens of campaigns throughout his career including three democratic presidential campaigns. you saw a few there just this week, fiorina, carson huckabee. any of them serious candidates? >> i think all of them are serious candidates. particularly when you look at the polls, you look at where the party is. a great deal of frustration by some grassroots conservatives against the establishment. and some of these -- many of these candidates provide a voice to a lot of those conservatives. so this is i think one of the great things for voters out there who want options, particularly on the republican side they have a lot of them. this is a very strong field. >> who do the democrats worry about most in that group? >> nobody that we just saw. i think the candidates the democrats worry about most were not in that clip. marco rubio is one.

jeb bush is the other. i think to some degree if scott walker could get some lift he presents an interesting challenge. although i don't think most people think he has a lot of staying power. and i was struck by kevin's response because i think it depends on how you define serious, right? they're serious among a certain core group of constituencies within the republican party. but i think for most voters in the middle and the people who are going to decide this none of those candidates are serious. >> a number of the gop hopefuls, at the carolina freedom summit this week missing rand paul and chris christie. why was that? what does that tell us? >> there are a lot of cattle calls and you need to pick and choose which one you will go to. i think rand paul and chris christie weren't as concerned about being there and kind of making this evangelical pitch. we're seeing a lot of that going on. jeb bush was at liberty university as well yesterday, started making his pitch to evangelicals. so i think you'll see them all around the table. i think rand paul has done a little bit of this. but i think for the candidates who did speak this was a good opportunity to get in front of

an important early state and make your pitch to evangelical voters and i think that's what we saw. >> jeb raised some eyebrows this week and this is sara's reporting when he mentioned that george w. bush is one of his middle east advisers. that raised some eyebrows. damaging? >> no of course not. why would that raise eyebrows? i think it would raise eyebrows -- >> well -- >> hold on. it would raise eyebrows if he wasn't taking counsel from somebody who was a republican who was previously in office. that would be i think a more problematic answer if he were to deny that. >> but basically on the middle east george w. himself has acknowledged -- >> i will acknowledge that. one of the big challenges jeb bush said previously-e said i'm my own man. i wants to make the case this is about his vision his agenda for the country and it becomes problematic that's where it would become a challenge for him is when you're trying to talk about what your plans are for the future, when you're going to be forced by democrats and other critics to litigate the past it becomes a challenge.

>> i have to say people in the room were surprised to hear these words come out of jeb bush's mouth because he has been so careful in public to try to distance himself from his brother. but i also think the way jeb bush's staff reacted to this gives you an indication of the fact that they think it is damaging. they were saying, look, he was just talking about israel he wasn't talking about the middle east he wasn't talking about foreign policy more broadly. >> a little bit. >> right. it's not like he's going to call up his brother and say look i called to talk to you about israel but do not mention iran, do not mention iraq, we could not possibly talk -- >> george w. bush would not speak to his own father about foreign policy which would have actually made a lot of americans feel better about the decisions he was making. and now we've got his brother saying that he listens to him. i think the deal that the clintons offered the public in 1992 the two for one deal right now looks a little bit better than two for one deal that the bushes are offering. >> hillary clinton's going to be asked whether or not she would listen to or take counsel from barack obama who has very low

foreign policy ratings right now as well. and it will be interesting to see whether or not she -- >> have you seen bill clinton's numbers? we're talking about people in the same family now. zplt only numbers i've seen from bill clinton are all the money he's getting for big speeches for the foundation. >> you should look at his favorability ratings. >> hillary clinton's going to have to answer to barack obama policies because she was the secretary of state at that time. i think it's problematic on both sides of the aisle but i think right now if you look at the american public they still look at the war in iraq and have divisive views about that they see it as very unpopular and that's something jeb bush is going to have to carry forward especially if he's telling people -- >> does that penetrate the debate this year? particularly does the terror threat bring it home? as often as we talk about it for many americans it's at arm's length it's over there. a lot of names in iraq and syria that they can't quite get their heads around. is that a major issue in this campaign? >> i think it is a major issue. and i think you when you look at the candidates on the right, and i won't call it a clown show, but when you look at the folks that we just looked at and some of the others who are running,

they will make people feel a lot better about hillary clinton and her experience and a lot better about having bill clinton around and nearby. his numbers are extraordinary, he's the most popular former president in -- who's living today. and there's a reason for that. it's because people respect him and they like the decisions he made when he was president. and i think they are comforted by the fact that he'll be a phone call away at any moment if hillary clinton's in the white house. >> the three of you stand by. when we come back i want to ask you about president obama taking on one of the most popular members of his own party. nting how we do business by leading the way on tax cuts. we cut the rates on personal income taxes. we enacted the lowest corporate tax rate since 1968. we eliminated the income tax on manufacturers altogether. with startup-ny, qualified businesses that start, expand or relocate to new york state pay no taxes for 10 years. all to grow our economy and create jobs. see how new york can give your business the opportunity to grow at ny.gov/business

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elizabeth is a politician like everybody else, and she has a voice she wants to get out there. i understand that. and on most issues she and i deeply agree. on this one, though, her arguments don't stand the test of fact and scrutiny. >> strong words from the president against a fellow democrat. back with kevin madden steve mcmahon, and sara murray. steve, smart for him to be taking on a democrat, elizabeth warren this is in her criticism of the transpacific partnership trade deal but a democrat who's arguably more popular than he is with his base? those are strong words. >> well they were strong words but i think it's honest of him to do it. one of the things that happens when you become president you have to look at the entire world

and you look at it sometimes a little differently than when you're a progressive senator from massachusetts. they each have a job to do and they are different jobs. elizabeth warren is a strong voice for, you know, workers and for progressive causes, and we need that in our party. the president is the president and he's negotiating a trade deal, and he's not going to sell out progressive policies because he's you know one of the biggest proponents of progressive policies we've ever had in the white house. >> she's popular, though sara murray, and we are a year away from this election. it's not obama running of course. he was out on a limb there. >> talk about strange bedfellows on this issue, though. you have president obama and a lot of the republicans who are running for president saying they are in favor of this trade deal, and then you have elizabeth warren who says she's against it. mike huckabee who says he's against it. this gives you a sense there's this sort of economic moment of populism crowd and that's going to carry over to the election and the candidates will have to find a way to walk the line. do you have to find a way to get trade deals done, yes, and they will have to state that.

but you also want to make sure you talk to those workers in manufacturing states, states like the one i'm from m michigan and they don't feel like they're getting a raw end of the deal. >> let's ask about another issue that candidates have to walk the line that is immigration. if hillary clinton taking a very strong position saying she supports a path to full and legal citizenship for undocumented immigrants. you see the reaction from a chris christie called an extreme position. ted cruz says her stance shows she's running for obama's third term. let me ask you, kevin madden, this is a big issue with latino voters. who's on the right side of this? >> this is one of those issues where republicans have to be very careful because the clinton campaign tactically is being very smart here. they're laying bait on an issue they suspect that republicans are going to overreach on that we will come out very quickly and criticize democrats reflexively in a way that totally defines our stance on this issue by what we're against versus what we're for, saying we're anti-amnesty we're against this or against that and hillary clinton's wrong. now, she may be wrong on her

policy but we have to make sure as a party that with those key voting demographics the key latino voters that are very important in a lot of battleground states, that we tell them what it is that we're for, how a modernized immigration system fits in with a global economy and how we want to invite people -- invite people to this country who are aspirational americans. >> steve, when you heard those words from cruz and christie did you see an opportunity there? >> absolutely. george will had a great column in the "washington post" today and at the end of a piece where he otherwise basically eviscerated huckabee for being craven and reckless and irresponsible he made the following observation which is most americans at this point don't pay very much attention to politics but they do pay attention to presidential campaigns from either party. and that helps them to define what that party stands for, what that party believes, and what that party might do were they in power. it's the reason republicans have a 29% favorable rating right now among most of those voters and it's a real challenge for

republicans. kevin says it exactly right. the clinton campaign's tactically very smart. they're setting a trap. the republicans will overreach because they always do. and they'll define themselves with most voters in a way that's negative. >> steve mcmahon kevin madden sara murray, great to have you back again this week. and welcome again to cnn. >> thank you. >> appreciate you joining us on mother's day. coming up next the veteran who fought in two of the most momentous battles of the second world war, had a chance to meet with him on the 70th anniversary of v.e. day. big day? ah, the usual. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked. made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern.

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welcome back. this weekend marks the 70th anniversary of ve day, the end of the war, world war ii, in europe. washington, d.c. commemorated the day with an aerial tribute to veterans. i spoke with a 96-year-old u.s. navy veteran. nick zuris. he fought in europe and in asia. along with historian alex kershaw. he's the author of "the bedford boys," a group of virginia soldiers who suffered horribly on that d-day invasion. >> world war ii veteran mr. harry miller. >> 140,000 americans died. that's why we're here today, to celebrate the end of the war but also to commemorate that loss.

the bloodiest place you could possibly be in europe was omaha beach on june the 6th, 1944. >> what were your chances of surviving? >> in company a, to which the bedford boys belonged, 116th, 29th division, they landed on the deadliest sector of omaha beach which was the deadliest beach. out of 180 men, 112 were killed. by lunchtime on d-day, maybe 10, 12 guys could actually stand and fight. >> so 10 out of 180. >> yeah. i mean you have to go back to the civil war to experience a loss like that. so there was a huge sacrifice. >> veteran nick zuris shared memories from d-day. where he commanded a seven-man crew on a u.s. navy rocket boat. >> it's not easy to talk about. these guys took an unnecessary beating. >> zuris and his men came before the first wave of troops who stormed omaha beach, the deadliest stretch of the french coastline. under fire the rocket boats shelled the beach to try to

soften up german defenses ahead of the landing troops. >> it was tragic. nothing we could do. as i turned around to head away from the beach i saw pointe du hoc. at pointe du hoc they had those army guys going up metal ladders, and the germans were shooting them off the metal ladders. >> you saw the rangers climbing up -- >> yes. they were climbing up the damn metal ladders and they were being fired on. >> today zuris still gets emotional recalling his frustration at not being able to do more to save american lives that day. >> i interviewed veterans who landed on the first wave in omaha beach. they said when you fired your rockets they were in their landing craft and they cheered as those rockets came overhead because it gave them hope. they were like oh, my god, maybe the defenses can be destroyed.

>> after we started back, we were damn near hit by the light cruiser and the destroyer coming in and firing on the beach. so something happened in the meantime after all that tragedy took place that gave them, the troops, a chance to make the landing. otherwise they would be annihilated. >> i wonder today, 70 years later, there was a poll we saw that most young people in europe and the u.s. don't even know what ve day is. do you think that people remember? >> i think that's a tragic fact if it's true. i'd like to think the opposite. i think most people of an older generation certainly -- i'm in my late 40s. i remember. most europeans remember. i hope that that's wrong. i think the difference is that during your time, sir, it was an all or nothing fight. it was really all or nothing. over 14 million americans in uniform.

you fought in europe until you were killed or wounded. >> you know, it strikes me that in your time this was a national fight here in the u.s. and in europe as well. everybody contributed. today, you know, the wars in afghanistan and iraq are fought on the backs of a very small portion of the population. i wonder if people today can identify with that same sense of a national -- frankly, an international mission. what do you think? >> i don't think so. i'll be honest. world war ii, everybody pulled together. it was a case of national survival. world war ii i believe was won by the housewives at home as much as it was by gentlemen like yourself. everybody gave everything they possibly could. it was a fight for national existence and the preservation of everything we care about. >> could we do this again today? >> i think so definitely. i think you'd have to do something very controversial, though. you'd have to bring back a

draft. you would have to make the sacrifice national and shared. when everybody -- when every congressman's son and every senator's relative is also fighting the good fight. then we could do it again, absolutely. we're doing our best now, but we only have a very small minority of the american population fighting -- it's important. >> repeated tours. >> and the same groups of americans today are making the greatest sacrifice as before. the national guard units, the american working class are still the ones that we use when we want to fight wars abroad. >> our generation remembers, our parents' generation remembers, but are those memories fading? >> that's a horrible question because i would hate to think that. my son remembers because i made him remember. i think if we celebrate these events, if we make sure it's part of the our history, if we make it a core of our culture, then no, we won't forget, and we should never forget. because we owe everything to these men. >> that's why we're here, so we don't. >> yeah. we can vote. we're not in a concentration

camp. we have freedoms that we take for granted. it's something we should never forget. it's why we can be who we are today. >> some 70 million people fought for the allied and axis nations, a war that affected the entire globe at such great human cost the likes of which we hope we never see again. we'll be right back.

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thanks for watching "state of the union." i'm jim sciutto. before we go, i want to wish a very special happy mother's day to my wife, gloria, mother to our two boys, soon to be mother to another little girl. i spend every day in awe of what she does and the love she shows. i know there are many other fathers and sons and daughters out there who feel the same way. happy mother's day to all of you. "fareed zakaria gps" starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com this is "gps," the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria.