>> charlie: welcome to the program. tonight, steve sestanovich on american foreign policy, from truman to obama. >> i think the president's challenge is both to reassure allies, to reimpress add veer as and to rebuild a consensus about what american purposes are abroad. that is hard because we don't have a consensus about what those purposes should be. we're going to have a debate from now till the presidential election as to what foreign policy should be. >> charlie: continue with a biography about hillary clinton. >> we talk to a lot of republicans in this book who give her credit for working across the aisle and not being -- i think she called herself a workhorse not a show horse, and for sort of doing that, for working behind the

scenes, for trying to move legislation together and not hogging the spotlight as some thought she might. >> charlie: we conclude with the former governor of ohio, ted strickland. >> charlie, there's something wrong when the supreme court basically equates money with speech, and that means these billionaires have a lot more speech than the average american, and the average american is feeling really put upon here, and the whole economic situation in the country is such that the cards are stacked against the average working person who is just simply trying to survive, and those with great wealth who can use that wealth to mold public opinion and to basically buy, in some cases, actually buy access and get the legislation that they want enacted into law, there is something really wrong, and i think it threatens our

democracy. >> charlie: american foreign policy, hillary clinton and former governor of ohio when we continue. >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: steve sestanovich is here, served as former ambassador-at-large to the former soviet union also held senior rolls at the national security council and state department. a professor at the columbia university and senior fellow at the council of foreign relations. he has studied maximalist america from truman to obama. pleased to have steve back on the program. it's good to have you in the studio, too, by the way. it's better than remote. i promise you. ukraine, russia. >> yep. >> charlie: where are we? well, we're looking at, it

seems, a kind of rolling dismemberment of ukraine. i think it may turn out to be too strong a statement. i hope so. but right now, the way the russians seem to be handling this is to challenge the authority of the ukrainian government and to warn that if the ukrainian government tries to assert its authority in the eastern provinces where their support is weaker that russia will respond, and respond today, the foreign minister said, as they did in georgia in 2008, which is the threat of war. >> charlie: yes, indeed. yes. >> charlie: so they're threatening war if, in fact, what happens? >> if there is an attempt by the ukrainian government to oust the pro-russian separatist groups that have taken over buildings and squares in eastern ukraine,

in small cities and in towns. >> charlie: which they intended to do. >> the ukrainian government has said a number of times that it wants to do this. they have held back because they know that the use of force may not be supported, it may not be successful and it delegitimized the previous government. it was when president yanukovich killed so many people in february -- >> charlie: that he lost the support of the people. >> -- he lost the support of everybody. >> charlie: even his own party. >> his own party. >> charlie: yeah. so at that point, he had to flee the country. the new government is aware of that precedent, and they are cautious because they do not want a complete melee in the cities in eastern ukraine where they don't have a lot of support to begin with.

>> charlie: so you said there will be by the russian as rolling dismemberment of ukraine. does the united states have to sit back and let it happen, or can it stop it? >> well, the american position, with varying degrees of support from our allies in europe, has been that, if russia acts in ukraine, then there will be a whole new raft of sanctions. there's been an interesting evolution in the past few days and week, perhaps. the obama administration policymakers who have spoken on this have suggested that it isn't just a new action by russia that might trigger new sanctions but, instead, a failure to contribute positively to the resolution of this problem. >> charlie: how do you think in the halls of the national security council at the white house, how are they discussing this? what balance are they trying to form? what are they worried about? are they worried if they do too

much it somehow will unleash something unpredictable? >> unpredictable to be sure. there is kind of a new sense that putin is a complete loose canon, that anything is possible -- >> charlie: from within the national security council where they have all kinds of profiles and ways to measure -- >> charlie, they don't know anything about what goes on inside putin's head. putin mind reading is a cottage industry in all western capitals and intelligence services, but people don't know what he's thinking. >> charlie: really? no, they don't. >> charlie: take this in comparison, but it seems to be true that, with most colder leaders and -- world leaders and especially dictators, if you look at what they have been saying you predict what they will do. >> that's what scares people about putin is because he's been saying things that imply a claim

way beyond just a couple of eastern provinces in ukraine. this term that he's been using, "new russia" implies a russian claim of the entire belt across southern ukraine, which would reach to the moldovan border, really carving out, taking half the state. now, we don't know whether this is what putin has in mind, whether he just wants to so weaken the government that it cannot rule, cannot revive the economy, can't restore its authority anywhere. the range of possible scenarios that people can imagine as putin's end game, that's very wide, now, and it starts with just fiblin nibbling away at ean ukraine and ends up in war. >> charlie: does this make any

difference, the president in asia now and on his multi-nation tour that chinese believe in some course that he is pursuing a policy of containment? a long way of saying that. >> the problem with putin is not that he's worried that the united states or its european allies are trying to contain him. he seems to be convinced -- any russian will tell you this -- that the united states want to unseat him. >> charlie: oh. he's talking about the c.i.a. did this and that. >> and the pope -- he sees lots of enemies out there. but since the orange revolution in ukraine in 2004 when the pro russian candidate was defeated by a pro-western candidate, putin has argued person policy is designed to dictate who rules in what country and he is

convinced that our american effort is to show him the door. that's why he said, in 2011, when there were demonstrations in moscow, that secretary clinton had given the signal for those demonstrations. >> charlie: and he believes that? >> he's said to believe it. >> charlie: when you say russians say it, who are we talking about? i don't mean specific names, but people in the government that you would know because you have been a scholar and a government official? >> all kinds of russians in and out of government, in the media. >> charlie: people who have a reason to know. >> yes. >> charlie: and they say it's his mindset about america. >> yes. >> charlie: his first response to the demonstrations in kiev, his first response was it's the c.i.a. then when brennan goes over, they go crazy. they say, ah, see, we told you. >> this is a very strong

conviction, on putin's part, about the meddling of the west, and it doesn't seem to be possible to dissuade him. so containing him might turn out to be a more constructive policy. >> charlie: let's talk about the book. >> sure. >> charlie: why the title? "maximalist." >> my argument is american policy for about 70 years has operated mostly in two modes, one a maximalist mode, pedal to the metal, problem-solving, put lots of resources behind it, and a retrenchment mode, what we do when the maximalist projects go a little bit off the rails. and there's been this kind of alternation, a very ambitious effort to solve a problem, to respond to a threat and then to pull back and find a more sustainable -- >> charlie: point out where we pulled back. after vietnam? >> well, we've pulled back from

over commitment four or five times since 1945, first of all right after the war, after korea, after vietnam, after the cold war, which was a major thing. >> charlie: when did we say the cold war ended? >> 1991 is a good enough date. now president obama is, in a way, the fifth retrenchment president or the fifth to conduct -- >> charlie: who was last before him? >> at the very end of the cold war, the first president bush thought there had to be kind of a reduction in american defense spending and american commitments. >> charlie: he was a foreign policy president. >> he was a foreign policy president. it's a fascinating story. the first half of bush's administration was all foreign policy, immensely successful,

activist, committed, engaged, thoughtful. >> charlie: he had a good foreign secretary of state, too. >> he had a very, very good staff. the second half of his administration was one in which he ran away from foreign policy. >> charlie: after having the highest ratings you could possibly have. >> quite extraordinary, but he believed foreign policy was not popular among the american people, that it wouldn't help him to get reelected, and he believed the cold war was over and a certain kind of downsizing was necessary. >> charlie: and bill clinton convinced america it was the economy. >> well, bill clinton came in responding to and in some ways carrying forward that kind of retrenchment, but he found a way out of it. bosnia turned out to be the pivot for him to a new policy. >> charlie: took a while to convince him to go to bosnia. madam albright would have done it much earlier than he did it. >> retrenchment generally lasts a while.

it lasts longer when it follows failure, so that the retrenchments that have followed are unsuccessful military operations, korea, vietnam, iraq, afghanistan, those have lasted quite a long time, and that would make you think that obama's retrenchment would also last a long time. >> charlie: what would you call reagan? >> an arch maximalist but with one important asterisk. reagan was for a big increase in the defense budget, for ideological wa warfare, he was r seeing the need for american engagement in lots of areas where there hadn't been active involvement, but he stayed out of war, unlike the other maximalist presidents of the post-war period. he didn't get involved in a big military operation that went bad, that discredited his foreign policy. instead, he managed to pull it

off without that kind of military commitment. >> charlie: seemed to me that president obama likes the idea of sort of a new kind of warfare that would include drones and special ops and that kind of thing as a forward extension of american power. >> retrenchment presidents often like covert action (laughter) you know? it's cheaper, quieter, it's secret. eisenhower was committed to covert action in iran, in guatemala. the nixon and kissinger entrenchment after vietnam involved a covert action that went along with the downsizing -- >> charlie: but a lot of that was because of the temp of the country and its animosity towards the vietnam war. >> sure. >> charlie: there was no mandate for anything other than -- >> getting out. >> charlie: -- getting the

hell out of vietnam. >> absolutely. but that's the mindset of presidents who come in who see themselves as hired by the american people to fix a problem of overcommitment. >> charlie: so john f. kennedy was a maximalist? >> oh, absolutely. maximalist in the sense that he convinced the american people that eisenhower wasn't doing enough, that he wasn't vigorous enough, he wasn't an activist. kennedy said of eisenhower's tenure as president, he said it had been eight years of drugged and fitful sleep. you don't get nastier than that. there was a kind of commitment on the part of the new frontiersmen to get out there and position the united states in a different way. >> charlie: we can go anywhere, do anything we want because we are america. >> absolutely. now, kennedy was not crazy about that.

he understood the risks. he thought it was necessary to take those risks. he also wanted to try to limit them. >> charlie: well, interesting about him, and i was reading some stuff recently, is he said, look, it's crazy that we can, in a sense, be in what part of the world we are can control the rest of the world and we have to recognize there are limits on american power. >> yeah, kennedy didn't act that way in every respect. >> charlie: he would say that occasionally. >> he was very nervous about what american power might do, what kinds of risks it might create, particularly in the nuclear age, at a time when soviet policy was becoming more activist, too. that desire to limit risk was a little check on his maximallism, but his overall outlook was the united states represents the forces of the future, we can reach out to almost everybody in the third world in europe and

asia, and there was a kind of a confidence in that outlook that -- >> charlie: it was a young and vigorous america. >> that was the way he presented himself to the american people and got elected. >> charlie: barack obama, what is his foreign policy legacy, assuming as you have identified him as a retrenchment president because he wanted to get out of two big wars, iraq and afghanistan. >> well, retrenchment presidents are hired by the american people, as i said of others, to fix a mess, and he thought that was his job absolutely correctly. i mean, he came in, 79% of republicans and 79% of democrats said we want less foreign policy, less activism. retrenchments have a problem, once they solve that mess, they have to define a course for the future and they don't often have a good answer for it. new challenges arise and they have to decide whether we're

going to meet those challenges or take a pass. >> charlie: how good is he at foreign policy? >> well, i think he's not deeply interested in it. >> charlie: they always say that. what's the evidence of that? what's he interested in? >> i think he's interested in what he says he's interested in which is nation building here at home. >> charlie: poverty and income and equality and healthcare? >> that's his background and he's got a lot of good reasons to argue for a focus on domestic issues. >> charlie: will he be seen as a successful foreign policy president? >> well, if the record is just limited to his first term, people would say a fabulously successful foreign policy president. remember, when he ran for reelection, republicans couldn't lay a finger on him. they acknowledged this was successful foreign policy. retrenchment presidents tend to have trouble in their second

terms where they encounter new problems they don't know how to deal with and i think, for the president, the two years since he was reelected have been tough ones. they've involved new challenges that he's not known how to get his hands around. >> charlie: so what do you think he should do? >> well, retrenchment presidents generally face a number of challenges. they face doubts from american allies about american commitment. they face doubts from american adversaries about american commitment. they face criticisms here at home that they're not preserving american power in the world. they tend to think of this as a problem that is just fringe criticism. >> charlie: right. they tend to not see that they're losing the support of the center. so i think the president's challenge is both to reassure allies, to reimpress adversaries

and to rebuild a consensus about what american purposes are abroad. that is hard right now because we don't have a consensus about what those purposes should be. we're going to have a debate from now till the presidential election as to what american foreign policy should be. >> charlie: our role in the world. >> absolutely. and both parties, democrats and republicans, are divided about it. you've got a serious constituency in both parties now arguing for a focus on domestic affairs. that is not the dominant constituency in either case, but there's going to be a very lively debate, and we don't know whether, in the 2016 presidential election it's going to be the democrats who are arguing for activist foreign policy or the republicans. >> charlie: guess who said this -- the united states should serve only as a weight, not the

weight in the scale. >> that's richard nixon in the very beginning of his administration talking about a less committed, less activist role for the united states, not trying to solve every problem. >> charlie: i think that's what jack kennedy said, too, even though his rhetoric was soaring often. >> yeah, but it was nixon who was coming in after a period of overcommitment. kennedy thought he was coming in after a period of undercommitment, and he wanted to reinflate american foreign policy. nixon wanted to downsize it. >> charlie: what did vienna do to kennedy? >> kennedy had a terrible experience at vienna with krischov and said he was much more a bar barrian.

krischov was a brutal arguer, rather unpleasant company and kennedy was nervous about what kind of impression he had made. he thought he had come across as weak. he came home, assembled his advisers, called for an increase in the defense budget, forfeit case of berlin, a need to reenergize the person policy to slow the soviets down. but what was interesting about it is krischov had taken away a slightly different impression. he was impressed by kennedy's threats and he did not try to drive the united states out of berlin. >> charlie: maximalist, the world from truman to obama. steve sestanovich. thanks. >> thanks. >> charlie: back in a moment. stay with us. >> charlie: reporters jonathan allen and amie parnes are here, they wrote a new book "hrc: state secrets and the rebirth of hillary clinton."

it tells the story of hillary clinton's political arc from defeated presidential candidate to chief diplomat to presumed presidential nominee. the authors call it one of the great political comebacks in history. jonathan allen is the white house correspondents for bloomberg and former politico. amie parnes is the chief white house correspondent correspondee hill. how did this idea to do this book at this time come about from two different people? >> that's a good question. so jon and i both worked at politico, as he said. we were very fascinated in looking at her time in state. it hadn't been well covered. sure, she had a press corps traveling with her, but we said this is a woman who was going to run for president. we wanted to look at what she did in the past four years, if

she was capable, if she would pass the test and voters would look at her. >> we did a couple of stories together and found we had a real good flow going. >> charlie: how does that work? >> actually, we sit across the table from each other. we started at a starbucks in georgetown with two computers open and worked in google documents and i would write a few paragraphs and amie would edit them and i could see the edit happening in the file as it was going on and she would write a few paragraphs and say, no, i don't like that, let's a add th. >> charlie: you conducted some 200 interviews with people about her. when you talked to people about her, is there a sense that, at the core, always, about hillary clinton, which might be competence? what is it? >> it's interesting. i think, when you talk to

people, they respect her, even republicans. we talked to a few like dar rl reedaryl isa, who has great respect for her and thinks she's very capable. we tell the story of the way he saw benghazi when he blamed obama at first for benghazi and then after the 2012 election he pivoted to hillary and started blaming her more. but i think deep down republicans have a great deal of respect for her. one called it "stages of hillary," where he says he dreaded working with her at first and then reached the acceptance phase where he was okay working for her and then he actually started liking her. we found that really interesting. >> charlie: you hear that from bob gates, john mccain. not in every instance, but some

republicans at that level have had working relationships -- dave petraeus as c.i.a. director and general. >> petraeus told us he thought she would make a tremendous president. >> charlie: you pick up the book where in her life? >> at the end of the 2008 primary with a couple of her aides making out a list, a naughty and nice list of -- >> charlie: what was the list about? >> so the list was about keeping track of who was very loyal to her among democratic members of congress and who she felt betrayed her, her aides were tracking each of these delegates along the way, and they raided each of -- rated each of them 1 to 7. >> charlie: they also took account of the fact in which there were times president clinton had done things for people and when push came to shove they were not there for hillary. >> if you look at it, bill clinton was the only democratic

president other than jimmy carter who was still alive and therefore had done something for almost everybody in the democratic party and i think the clintons believed when she went in for president all of those people would coalesce around her and they didn't find that. >> reporterthat. >> charlie: is she embarrassed by the list? >> i get the sense president clinton doesn't like that being out there in part because in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, he went after people on the list and tried to beat them as opponents. >> charlie: and found themselves on the opposite side of president obama. >> even though he became a surrogate for president obama, and that was important for bill clinton after the elections and certainly hillary. >> charlie: it has negative connotations when you think of a political enemies list. >> i think the average american

doesn't care that much if a former president goes after and knocks out another politician in a political race whereas necksen's enemies lists were often him going after people in government or going after -- >> charlie: or using the power of the i.r.s. >> correct, to hurt individuals, not, you know, political enemies but to hurt individual americans, and i think that's a different game. >> charlie: and there was this -- 2008 she lost the president nomination, she supports the president, obviously, but he's elected. at that time, how did she see her future before he approached her to say i want you to be my secretary of state? she was no longer a senator. >> she wanted to go back to the senate, you know, the financial crisis was happening. she felt i" really wanted t toe back in the senate but the senate didn't make room for her. she could have gone back and done her old job but there was nothing for her to climb the

ranks and i think that was upsetting to a lot of people, particularly women senators who tried to lobby for her and they lobbied the president elect to say you should think about her for a bigger position. >> charlie: also, i assume that the president liked the idea of team and if she was on the team she would not be opposing him in the senate if he had legitimate differences. >> and she dodged him a few times. she went to chicago. they spoke for an hour. she came back. he said think about it. she said i don't know if i want to take it. he kept calling her, and she kept saying i don't want to, you know, no, no thank you. finally, he cornered her. i think she feels this obligation that when the president elect asks you to do something you should do it. >> charlie: more than once. more than once. >> charlie: how was the relationship while she was secretary of state? >> i think it grew, it evolved. i don't think they will be

vacationing in the hamptons together anytime soon. >> charlie: or martha's vineyard. >> or the dominican republic. yeah, i think at the very beginning it was a situation where they were -- they and their team still described it as us and them and i think, over time, obama and clinton felt like they really needed to set the example for their organizations to merge and i think they started to become closer. it just took a while. >> charlie: you always got the impression foreign policy was run out of the white house. >> it was run out of the white house. it's interesting. that's not a difference between most white houses. >> charlie: exactly. you know, i think the expectation might have been with her coming in, she was a bit of a celebrity, an international star, it would be different. >> charlie: yeah. henry kissinger was running for -- >> charlie: and kept that job.

there was a funny story about their bonding moment in copenhagen. there was a climate summit, the chinese were holding a meeting. the united states wasn't invited. the president turns to the secretary and says we weren't invited and she says let's crash this thing. the two to have them who had been fighting this bruising primary stormed what she called the secret meeting and here they are, approached by a chinese official running up to them screaming obscenities and the president turns to the secretary and says, i don't know what this guy is saying, but it isn't "i'm glad to see you." and both sides talk about that moment as a moment where they both kind of understood where the other was coming from, and that was the moment that bonded them. >> charlie: they did that joint interview on "60 minutes." >> right after he had asked her to stay, in 2012 after the election. this was not known before the book. you know, they're on air force one and he said i'd like for you

to stay for a year. >> charlie: for a year. and she says, no. he says, well, how about a little bit longer? she says, no, it's time for me to go. he lets it go at that. >> charlie: why did she say that? >> i think she felt like she'd done her public service and it was time to get out and probably make an assessment about 2016. >> charlie: do you think she never stopped thinking about being president even after 2008? >> i think she's never stopped thinking about being president. >> charlie: lots of people give her high marks for the way she came to the senate, meaning her acceptance by the senate was because she didn't come with blaring trumpets, she came with sleeves rolled up, ready to go to work. >> exactly. and we talk to a lot of republicans in this book who actually give her credit for working across the aisle. i think she called herself a workhorse, not a show horse, and for working behind the scenes and trying to move legislation together and not hogging the spotlight as some people thought

she might. >> charlie: if she does seek the nomination, gets the nomination and runs for president, where are her vulnerabilities? >> i think health care could be one. as we reveal in the book, she had her fingerprints on it. there was one cabinet meeting where all the cabinet secretary gathered and they're all trying to push their own ideas and she said she remembered what happened in her husband's administration and said -- >> charlie: she was running it. >> yes. and she said, this is our moment. we need to seize this moment and do it now. she also talked to a few lawmakers about it. we reveal that in the book and the republican national committee has taken that and run with it, i think that may hurt her. it remains to be seen, if healthcare is labeled as a success or not for the president. >> charlie: go ahead. the other big vulnerability, she'll hear about ben gazay, but the other major vulnerability is we haven't heard from her what her vision is for the united

states. >> charlie: it will be interesting to find out her narrative and where she wants to take the country and how it's different from her own political past. >> in 2008, it was a huge problem for her. barack obama was good at packaging a vision and selling it. >> charlie: and the narrative. and the narrative. and she was not good at it. it was i should be president because i'm the mostic most expd and qualified. >> charlie: do you know what her narrative would be? >> i don't. it's one of the things as reporters we'll very much be poking at and prodding at should she enter the race. >> charlie: go ahead. she needs to embrace she is a woman candidate and that's something she didn't do in 2008. >> charlie: that's history. you can expect her to say you don't want to be on the wrong side of history. >> charlie: obama stole that

from her and made it clear his claim on history equally was a strong narrative. >> right. he embraced it. >> charlie: finally, the relationship with former president clinton. they had gone through publicized rocky roads. the foundation they created. seems if you have someone close to you in a political world, bill clinton would be a good choice. >> he's such a great advisor, such a great strategist for himself and almost everybody else but not her. at least in 2008, he turned out to be not a good strategist for her. i think she's got a blind spot when it comes to what's the best thing he can do to help her and whether he's able to rein it in in 2016 will have a tremendous

impact on her ability to be successful. al gore distanced himself from bill clinton and it was a terrible idea. in 2008, hillary clinton didn't rein him in at all. he did interaction with the press and said harmful things for the campaign that distracted from it. in some cases he was accused of playing the race card during the campaign against obama. that was not helpful to her. so in 2016, if she could do what obama did in 2012 which is to use bill clinton as a surrogate, send him out on the stump, he's very good at that, don't let him have too much interaction with the press, i think she will ben git from a more disciplined bill clinton on the press. >> charlie: the book, "hrc: state secrets and the rebirth of hillary clinton." jonathan allen and amie parnes, thank you. >> thank you. >> charlie: ted strickland is here, he is a democrat and he is the former ohio governor. he was one of president obama's highest profile co-chairmen

during his reelection campaign. he also served 12 years in the u.s. house, representing ohio's sixth congressional district. he recently became president for the center for american progress action fund. i am pleased to have him at this table for the first time. shame on me. welcome. >> so happy to be here. >> charlie: thank you so much. you have a ph.d. in psychology and were a counselor at a prison -- >> for over ten years. i worked 20 hours a week at a maximum security prison in ohio working with very seriously mentally ill inmates. >> charlie: did that give you insight into human behavior and served your well in politics? >> some of the most brutal, sadistic behavior i witnessed in the prison, but some of the kindest, most, you know, generous behavior i observed in that maximum security prison.

>> charlie: then you ran for congress. defeated. >> i ran for congress three times, charlie, before i won on my fourth attempt. >> charlie: what does that say about you? >> i'm persistent, i don't give up. >> charlie: that's a good human quality, too. >> i ran three times. someone said at first if you don't succeed, you try again and don't give up, there's no sense being a damn fool about it. but i decided to run again. i then spent 12 years on the hill and ran for governor. >> charlie: when you look at 2014, it doesn't look good for the democrats. >> it's going to be a difficult year. >> charlie: house seems not impossible. >> never impossible. >> charlie: but very difficult. but the senate looks increasingly tough. >> if the republicans were to win six seats in the senate, i think that would be disastrous for the country. i think it would be very

difficult for the president to have any meaningful legislative action take place. i don't think that's going to happen, but it will be difficult. the democratic base has got to understand what's at stake here. i mean, what's at stake is the ability of this country to move forward. you know, charlie, we had a supreme court decision -- >> charlie: yesterday, right? yes, and it's a very troubling decision. >> charlie: basically it said you're still limited in terms of how much you can give an individual candidate but there are no limits on how many candidates you can give to now. >> that's right. under the past current law, the most an individual could give during an election cycle was about $125,000, roughly. >> charlie: spread out over different -- >> yeah, about $48,000 of that could go to individual candidates and $70,000 or some could go to political

committees. this supreme court has now basically taken the lid off and a person, if they chose to, could give over $2 million in a single election cycle. now, i mean, this -- >> charlie: but to an individual candidate are still the same? >> the limits to an individual candidate are the same, but they can give -- >> charlie: to more candidates. >> yes. now, this supreme court troubles me. i think over the last four years this supreme court has made it easier for wealthy people to buy an election and they made it more difficult for the average american to vote in one. >> charlie: i mean, looks like harry reid wants to make the koch broth arse big political issue in 2014. >> i think that's reasonable. >> charlie: but democrats have wealthy voters and -- >> yes, but the koch brothers are in a class by themselves. they are among the richest

people. their combined wealth is some $80 billion, among probably the ten wealthiest people on the face of god's earth, and they are using their money, charlie, to promote policies which directly benefit them personally. >> charlie: do you think that's what it's about, how they can benefit themselves personally rather than their political philosophy. >> i think it's an ideology consistent with their own self-interest. i don't think there is a doubt about that. i do tend to think that's different from some wealthy people who give significant sums of money for political causes. the koch brothers, adleson is putting huge sums of money in an attempt to get members of the congress to pass laws regarding

online gambling which will benefit him hugely and directly. >> charlie: he doesn't want the competition from online guam gambling and is concerned about israeli issues and healthcare issues as well. >> sure. but, charlie, there is something wrong when the supreme court basically equates money with speech, and that means these billionaires have a lot more speech than the average american, and the average american is feeling really put upon here, and the whole economic situation in the country is such that the cards are stacked against the average working person who is just simply trying to survive, and those with great wealth who can use that wealth to mold you be public opinion and to basically buy, in some cases actually buy

access and get the legislation that they want enacted into law. there is something really wrong and i think it threatens our democracy. >> charlie: campaign finance reform has had a rough road. >> i mean, this court is, i think, just outrageous. >> charlie: the decision was written by the chief justice. >> you remember when the president, giving his state of the union speech said this is united and alito shook his head. but the president was correct. he said, this is going to open the floodgates for unaccountable money, money, in many cases, that is not reported, we don't know who it's coming from and what its purpose is. >> charlie: just to add to the discussion about the decision. justice breyer said the law undermines, probably devastates what remains of campaign reform.

thomas said the court should eliminate the $5,200 limit for candidates. >> what a legacy bush has in appointing clarence thomas to the supreme court. i think its unexplainable why we get some of the decisions out of that justice and out of the court that we get. >> charlie: how do you feel about public money for campaigns? >> well, i think an ideal situation would be public money, public financing. i think it would save the taxpayer a lot of money. i mean, if they could just prevent one or two major bad decisions, it would more than compensate for what public financing would do for our federal officers. i don't think it will happen because i just don't think the american people are there, but in my judgment there's great merit to the idea of having public financing for our federal offices.

>> is obamacare the biggest issue of the 2014 campaign? >> well, perhaps. i shouldn't be. >> charlie: what is it that makes it so controversial? is it the individual mandate? is it people who argue that the cost of healthcare is going to go up because of this? businesses are complaining? is it because people feel like it's an intrusion or is it something else? >> something else. >> charlie: what's the something else? >> the something else is, in my judgment, the republican party today has been taken over in terms of effective control by an element within that party, the extreme right-wing element that basically believes that government can do no good and that anything the government attempts to do should be opposed. >> charlie: when you make that political argument, you look at john boehner, he's had differences with the tea party in his own caucus as you know. >> he has and i congratulate him

when he's done that. john boehner said something to me after he became speaker -- >> charlie: he's from ohio. he is, and we were at an ohio state football game and john comes up and we were chatting and we said, ted, i cannot control these people, so i'm just going to turn them loose and see what happens. those are his exact words to me. >> charlie: when was this? shortly after he became speaker. so we've seen what happens. they shut down the government. they oppose every progressive effort to reform immigration, to increase the minimum wage, to provide healthcare coverage for our people, to have a fair tax code. we are facing, charlie, i think a real moment of decision in this country. in terms of the long-term direction of the country, i feel pretty good about it. you know, we're becoming more diverse. i think we're becoming more tolerant, more inclusive, and

demographically, we're becoming -- >> charlie: same-sex marriage. same-sex marriage. and i think some of these ideologically-driven folks are very fearful of what they see happening. they see power slipping away from them, and it makes them fairly desperate in terms of their tactics. so, long-term, i think we'll be okay as a country. i think the short term is a very dangerous time because we are seeing actions out of this congress that six or ten years ago would have been unthinkable. >> charlie: why do you think the president is so unpopular? >> unfortunately, i think it's just bias of someone of a different race. >> charlie: he says about that, yes, he thinks there may be people who vote against him because of his race, but he said there are people who vote for them because of his race.

>> sure, and i think that's probably a very accurate answer. but the damages that we're seeing -- >> charlie: in other words, you think it's beyond differences on policy. >> oh, absolutely, i do. absolutely, i do. in fact, mitch mcconnell, as we all know, said that, you know, the goal should be to deprive him of a second term, rather than focusing on a country where there's fairness and equal opportunity. >> charlie: what's the opinion about mitch mcconnell? will he be reelected? >> i hope not. i know his opponent very well. i think she's an incredibly attractive candidate. >> charlie: what was she? she is secretary of state in kentucky. i know her father, her family well. so she's a very credible candidate with a lot of natural gifts. mitch mcconnell -- charlie, the percentage of people in kentucky that are uninsured has declined

by 40%. think of that. and mitch mcconnell says obamacare is a disaster. who is he representing? >> charlie: but why -- if not those people? >> charlie: but at the same time, you know what the polls say about how people view the affordable care act. >> yeah. >> charlie: i mean, there's not an overwhelming majority -- this is a great piece of legislation. the public seems to be sharply divided. >> they don't want it repealed. they want it improved and fixed. >> charlie: is that a possible if the republicans came in control of the senate with the combination of both houses they might have enough majority to repeal? >> they'll never repeal it as long as president obama is president, obviously, and i don't think they can ever turn back. you can't take the 7-plus million people who have signed up through the market places

plus the people who have gotten access through the expansion of medicaid, about 4.5 million of those, plus about 3 million who are being covered through their parents' plans right now, you can't go back, and i think the republicans are just whistling in the dark when they say they're going to repeal obamacare. i don't think it's ever going to happen. i said to the president that he should be very proud that they call it obamacare because my prediction is, ten years from now, people will referred to obamacare with the same level of affection they feel toward medicare. and my prediction is also, when that happens, the republicans will start referring to it as the affordable care act instead of obamacare. >> charlie: what do you think of the president? tell me about how you evaluate his skills? he campaigned in ohio in 2008 and 2012. >> carried ohio twice and we're very proud of that.

i think the president is an exceptionally bright, gifted person. i think his policies -- >> charlie: but you supported secretary clinton the first time around. >> well, i did because, you know, secretary clinton is a friend, and i believe in her deeply and, you know, i'm glad she stayed in that primary race until the bitter end because i think it made barack obama a better candidate, and i think it said to her supporters this woman is not a quitter, and i'm really pleased and happy that they developed such a good relationship. she became secretary of state, did an outstanding job. i think they have really been mutually supportive of each other and i think, following the end of president obama's term, the country's going to be ready for hillary. >> charlie: tell me about this -- might be ready for

clinton-bush. >> it could happen. my personal feeling is jeb bush would be the strongest candidate the republicans could put forth. >> charlie: the toughest candidate therefore for secretary clinton. >> perhaps, yes. >> charlie: what is the center for american progress action fund? >> it's part of the center for american progress. the center for american progress is a think thank that has a policy analysis, good research, they come up with creative, progressive ideas to move the country forward in terms of healthcare, employment, tax fairness, you know, equality among the sexes and so on. the cap action fund is an attempt to take all that good policy and put it into action. there are two parts of a cap action fund -- one is think progress, which is a publication, an electronic

digital publication that gets over 6 million individual hits a month. the other part of cap action is what we call the war room, and the war room is the part of cap action where we take those good policies and engage in direct advocacy to try to turn those policies into, you know, legislation and have it enacted and so on. so i'm exceedingly happy to be associated with this wonderful organization. i've admired it from the outside for a long time. >> charlie: but you may run again? >> well, you never say never, and i've always been a person that says life unfolds and, as you confront challenges and opportunities, you make decisions regarding what to do with those opportunities, and that's where i am. >> charlie: great to have you here. >> charlie, it's good. just let me say that i've watched you for years, and it's unusual to be able to sit down

with someone like you and have a thoughtful discussion that is more than a political sound byte. so thank you for having me. >> charlie: my pleasure. come back. great to have you. >> thanks, charlie. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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