>> what kind of time frame do you see this being enacted? >> i think this needs to happen fairly quickly. the firms say they need to know if they're going to be designated as systemic. they put a request out for comment. it is a 30-day requests. get your comments in quickly because they plan to move fast -- >> tom, what did you hear from the chairman? >> i think it was interesting. she was quite frank in the -- quite frank that there were problems -- problems of the new era of regulation. she is obviously has issues her partners. she wants to be able to implement rules quickly. she did not quite used the word interference. she obviously has issues with other people around the table. we haven't reached the holy grail. it will not stop too big to fail and stop the next financial crisis. >> given she's at the fdic, is she as equal partner?

>> by force of her personality, i think she has become an equal partner. >> she perhaps would rank behind the treasury sector. -- the treasury secretary and the federal reserve chairman. unlike previous fdic chairman, she's right up there in the mix. >> tom and deborah, thank you for being on news makers. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] 2010span's coverage of the election coverage continues today with the kentucky senate seat debate beginning at 7:00 p.m. live at 10:00 p.m., democratic incumbent senator patty murray faces republican dino rossi in the republican -- in the washington senate debate. that is here on c-span. >> "q&a" tonight -- justice stephen breyer. >> it is sometimes hard to avoid your basic now used -- how

you see the country, your basic values, how you see the country, what you think a lot is about -- those basic, fundamental, legal and political values, i think are part of you and they will sometimes influence an approach where the question is very open and where it admits to that kind of thing. >> supreme court justice stephen breyer and his new book -- tonight on c-span. >> now, discussion and president obama's first two years in office from today's "washington journal." it is just over 25 minutes. host: peter baker of " the new york times -- "the new york times." we're talking about these mid-term elections. everybody is auming they're a referendum, least a verdict

on the first two years of president obama's time in office. we decided to take a serious look at what he has learned from these two years and what lessons he plight apdr -- might apply to the next two years. we had a chance to talk to both president obama in the oval office as well as probably two dozen of his aides and advisers from how things look from the inside out, how they per seef what's going on, what do they decide hasorked and hasn't worked. it was an interesting process. you got aot more reflection than you might have expected in the weeks coming before an election when everybody is obviously on edge. >> you've been around him as a candidate, senator, and as president. what was his demeanor like when you sat down with him? ? guest: relaxed, unrushed. we were told we had 20 minutes. he was engaged in the subject. he gave ate lot of thought. he is a reflective person.

he wrote his memoir at a very young age that most people think is the most introspective of memoirs. so he was willing to chew over some of these issues and we ended up spending a full hour together talking about what had gone right and wrong and how he sees things going. host: we're going to share with you some excerpts. as always, we'll get to your phone calls. you can join the conversation on line or send us an e-mail. let's dig right into this. you say theperhaps the most amb domestic agenda finds himself domestic agenda finds himself villified by the right, cascaded by the left and abandoned by the middle guest: and he's aware of that.

he's not going to admit it in the interview he's going to maintain optimism about where the democrats are going to end up. but he has begun thinking about what the aides call obama 2.0. what does he do with a less friendly congress? how much can he move through and think about using his executive power more, foreign policy obviously, and also implementation. the first two years he pushed through a lot of very big ambitious legislation, controversial. a lot of people don't like it. and these next two years are in part going to be about defending themselves against attacks from republicans in congress and in the courts. host: these are the president's words

guest: and that's absolutely true. the rest test -- real test is not when the president is down because every president does go through a period of political trouble, a period where they're challenged. the test, as we always tell our children, is when you get knocked down, can you get back up? what do you do to recover at that point? and he's thinking about history in that way. he's been reading presidential biographies. he reading a book, the clinton tapes, about his secret conversations with president clinton. and he's looking at the examples i think of history to find out presidents -- how presidents have gone through moments like the one we're seeing right now and how do they recover. presidt clinton lost congress in 1994, came back to win reelection two years later. ronald reagan lost a couple dozens seats in the house. his poll numbers were also

down. he came back to win reelection. so are those the emples that president obama can follow or does he have a different path where like for instance jimmy carter perhaps or even george bush in his second term where the numbers just went down and he never could pull back up. host: this is what it looks like, the education of a president by peter baker. in your story you refer to the president's comments in milwaukee. let's watch. >> some powerful interests who have bn dominating the agenda in washington for long time are not always happy with me. they talk about me like a dog. that's not in my prepared remarks. it's just -- but it's true. host: harry truman said if you want a friend in washington, get a dog. did those comments surprise you? guest: a little bit.

i think he's expressing his frustration on the trail. he said some thing that is sound perhaps defensive even or frustrated. he said at a recent fund raiser, look, it takes time. it took time to free the slaves, it took time to give women the vote. which is comparison, equating what he is doing with some pretty big things in american histy. but i think it must be tough to be a president given all of the things that come your way. and all of the knocks that come your way. he has at the moment not a lot of friends that he can rely on. he doesn't have a solid base of support at the moment that he would like to turn back to at the time of this. >> host: one of the pictures in your article, one of a series of a backyard townhall meetings, in richmond, virginia, in a home because of

rain that particular day. but we've been seeing the president in these informal seings. we've been covering them. what's the message and the pr behind that? because there is pr behind that. guest: i think they're trying to find a way to communicate that works better for h. there's the oval adf office address, things like that haven't worked as successfully as they would like. the big rallies of 2008, we see many of them but not many. they think these are more intimate and more human, and that might allow vote ers to connectith him and see him as somebody who understands what's going on in their lives and the troubles that they're experiencing with this down economy. you know, i think all these things are ways of trying to get across the message. but it's hard to imagine that they changed the dynamic in an environment like the one we have right now. host: and yet today's the first time we'll see the president and first lady together on the campus of ohio state university

in columbus, a state that is at the polls are correct, likely to go republican for a governor and senate. gues exactly. the president's on a big mpaign swing across a number of states. yesterday, friday in delaware, saturday massachusetts, today ohio. the rest of the week he's got five or six more states, all of which are obama states, by the way. he's only going to states where he won in 2008, in october, and that shows you he is trying to rally the base and not trying to expand his rch at this point, not bothering to go to places in the south or mountain west where he hasn't been as successful over time. host: i called this a lengthy piece. it's an interesting piece. how many words? guest: very quick 8,000 word reading. host: elly is joining us from new york. independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, please. caller: yes. i'm very interested in the

article. i haven't gotten to read it yet. but my comment is to peter. how many other political figures have you interviewed over the past few years? have you ever super viewed another president? education of a president? there have ever been any oth presidents that you did this kind of an article on? guest: thank you for the question. this is my third president i've covered. i've cord president clinton president bush. and it's interesting to see different presidents over time. what strikes me is the familiarity, actually, that these areery different men, of course, bill clinton, george bush, and barack obama and yet some things are universal. being in that office, being in that position i thi regardless of ideology puts individual men and eventually

women in a very familiar position. and in terms of their own personality, in terms of the way they run their white house, there's some interesting parallels as well. i sort of see president obama in a way kind of a cross between president clinton and president bush in some ways. not ideologically but in the way they run this. president clinton was very engaged in the details of policy, loved really digging into the nitty-gritty of things and understanding what was going on, intellectually curious. president obama is pretty silar in that regard. he's less likely to leave a decision open as long as president clinton did. en he makes a decision, like president bush, he doesn't revisit it, he's done with it. he's going to move on. he's more disciplined in the same way that president bush was. and some of the things that they say, it's fascinating to see some of the same things come out of their mouth. host: from the piece as i read

this, i pount out that presidents clinton, bush, obama, coming to this town with little experience or washington, really friends in this town. host: and then the two presidents before the elder president bush were ronald reagan, and jimmy carter. both governors came from out of town. we seem to b electing people who are promising to change washington, five of the last six presidents basically ran on that platform. and i think each of them has a different degrees discovered that's easier said on the campaign trail than traps form. you want to make change, and you can, but at the same time you have to be able to be effective as president and therefore recognize the system is what it is and you have to work within it to some extent.

host: next, new york city, good morning with peter baker. caller: good morning. i just wanted to ask i guess you had touched on this before but my question is basically do you feel that obama is perhaps a very great speech giver but perhaps maybe he needs to work on communication skills, getting his message across about his programs? i just feel he's, he gets up on the podium and does a great job but when he communicates his programs, he is falling quite short. guest: two years in his presidency we're talking about that being a challenge for him. his capacity for taking a stadium of 08,000 people and rousing them to intpration and hope and so forth but in fact that's one form of communication, not the only fornl of communication. as our caller just said, i compare president obama to president clinton in that way. president obama is a speaker

and president clinton is a talker. what i would -- the distinction i think president obama can in fact sort of captivate a moment in time with a great large crowd, where as president clinton isn't a great orator per se but is a really good explainer of his policies, a really good story teller and sort of talker to a group of say 250200 ople in which he lays out his program in a sort of logical sequention. . .

guest: your moment of maximum political capital is when you come into office. he pushed forward on that, recognizing the more time he is in the office, the less influence he might have over congress. yet he is not talking about that. he is talking about republicans taking away social security to senior citizens. there are two dynamics. health care proved not to be as popular as they thought. they knew it would not be popular in decided to do it anyway. that is a measure of virtue. the fact of the matter is they thought it would be popular and they have not even managed to structure or sell it in a way that the public has embraced.

r sell it. that may change. for the moment, it's not in the political selling point. and the second thing, of course, is the public doesn't want to hear about what you have done. but what you will do. as the president is trying to make the case, what the others may do. host: our guest is peter baker. it's difficu to have discussions with people who think you're the evil incarnate. we will go to pat on the republican line. caller: me question is to peter, the fourth branch of the government is the press. since 2011, when fox took over,

the media followed fox. what i'm challenging the reporters, because that's where we get our information. i just want facts. i love this country more than my party. that's what it's about. what i'm challenging the reporters, do your job. report the facts and let us decide. thank you very much. guest: thank you, i think our job is to provide the facts and context and analysis. i understand some people probably, you know, follow fox or whatever or any other station. what the "tes" tries to do is follow the news and the facts.

host: you were in the oval office a month after the refurbishing looks like with new paint and wall paper. in the body of the piece, you said. in politics, presence matters. he redecorates in a period that was unnecessary, next in a time of austerity. and one day, he showed up wearing one. you went on to talk about his appearances in church, at st. john's. guest: he thinks a lot of them are insulting to intelligence of the voters or the politicians. in the end, there are

nventions that are probably not worth his name. in the end, you explain why you're not wearing a flag pin or pray at home. it creates a distraction that's unnecessary. so in the end, he rebels and sort of succumbs in some ways of the rituals of the american politics. guest: another comment from mary. the president thinks he has fulfilled his promise, but did them in the gop way. enriching the corporations not the people guest: i think the common answer, he thinks he has gotten a lot done. they believe him to be in bed with wall street or whatever. it's fascinating how you can have such disparate views of the same person. you get, he's captive, of

corporate interest, he caved in to them and the right. on the other side, you hear the talk of his being a socialist, anti-business liberal. they seem irreconcilable. host: another picture of him and rahm emanuel. pete will stay on and not just serve as inter chief of staff. guest: i think how long he stays we'll see. pete rouse is a relectant chief of staff. he didn't want to move into rahm's office.

he wanted to stay in his office. he has a bet with his fellow deputy white house staff, a number of weeks of staff, pete rouse said he was going to move host: we will go back to the calls. good morning, randy. caller: hello. the last two callers said. i want the facts and you said it's inbelievable to get different people looking at the same person measured by the statistic and come out with different conclusions. i prefero let someonelse

look at the facts for me. my question is speaking to the last three presidents, did you get into that and each have a different perspective? >> that's an interesting question. you know, they have different perspectives, and yet, i being there's broad agreements from the presidents on nafta. president bush continued and agreed with it. . president obama agreed said it was something he would re-open. he sort of changed his mind or never really believed it.

host: more on the president's interview. it's available on the website on the "new york times." >> there's a perverse crime that we're going to do the right thing. even if short term was unpopular. anybody that occupied this office knows that success is measured with the interception of policy and politics. there are issues where we could have bee more effective than we have been. guest: one, he's saying, i was so interested in getting the things right that i didn't pay enough attention to selling it. that's obviously a pretty, um, justifying kind of line. but the part that's interesting, the candidate of2008, who in fact, was so good. as we have been talking this morning as communicating and bringing the country behind him.

he lost connection with the people that brought him there. it's not enough to simply put a policy in pce if the public isn't behind it. if the country doesn't believe in what you're doing, you're not going to have the success you want. host: any reaction from the white house? guest: no. they haven't taken issue with anything. they grumble about pieces here and there. i think they're not happy with the timing in the sense it's coming before the election. they would rather talk about them afte they haven't reacted dly. host: you sit down with the president. you have all of his quotes. how do you get your head around this and get i into an 8000

word piece? guest: interesting question, i had to throw out a lot of what i was writing and incoorate more of him. the think that would be of value iso hear his voice and perspective, and then give us some analysis and voices around it to putt in perspective. you know, it was a lot there. it was not an interview that was intended to make news per se or review each and every policy decision he made. it was to step out of his skin and be author obama and think about how he's changed, what he's learned, and what he would do differently. host: just the two of you in the room?

guest: yes. >> host: from the twitter. why does the gop refuse to own the part was legislation and they add in committee, falsely claiming "no input" guest: it's much more all or nothing. you don'tant to muck up a clear message by saying, we're against it, but we like these four provisions we put in committee. i think people are trying to sharpen their most important points. host: i heard an article from this article, in 2008, tip o 'neil tried to create

bipartisanship. today a speaker would be killed for that. not literally, but politically. guest: in this day and age, you control the floor and only bring things you basically have in your pocket. look at what happened in the senate. any number of things didn't get to a floor vote like cap and trade. even though it's beenassed in the house. so today, we d't so much as debate >> tomorrow on washington journal, steven rattner discusses his book and former defense secretary william cohen looks at the politics of outsourcing, and frank newport discusses a recent poll

examining people's attitudes on how active the federal government should be in the affairs of americans. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span networks -- we provide coverage of politics, public affairs, nonfiction books, and american history. it is all available on television, radio, online, and on social media networking sites. find our content any time through c-span's digital content library. we take c-span on the road with art digital bus and local -- with our digital bus and local content vehicle. c-span -- created by cable, provided as a public service. u.s. senateucky's candidates -- democrat jeff conway and republican rand paul -- meeting for an hour long debate at the university of louisville. this debate was organized by the

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