>> charlie: welcome to the program. we begin this evening this new season with a focus on foreign policy and talk to richard haass and steve coll. >> i.s.i.s. is a grotesque organization and it's a very serious problem in and of itself. it's also a symptom of a deeper instability and a deeper failure of international policy in iraq and sir. i can't i.s.i.s. feasts off the suffering of sunnis in syria primarily as well as the grievances of sunnis in iraq. >> countries such as iran and the united states or possibly syria, iran, united states, russia, saudi arabia may have to coordinate their policies. we have been on opposite sides of proxy wars but now when an enemy emerges that's an enemy to one and all you may have to put aside preferences and work together in a limited fashion.

>> and look to elections for mark halperin and john heilemann. >> can the democrats do enough targeted messages from the president, vice president, clintons and others to remake the electorate in some of the rails where voters don't usually vote -- younger, african-american, asias, hispanics, women -- turn out to vote in a mid-term, that's hard to do. on the republican side, the strategists will tell you they don't think they can live up to running against the other party unless they can appeal to social issues. social issues not in their favor in most cases. foreign policy, a lot is going on, but a lot of republican strategists aren't saying we'll win it on foreign policy. >> six months ago, no doubt people thought republicans were in place to reclaim the senate. the story has changed in these sick months. we do not have a mid-term

election that's looks like the previous two. in 2010, we had a big wave election, a big republican year. in 2006, we had a big wave election, a very big democratic year. that's not what the data shows about this election. >> charlie: richard haass, steve coll, mark halperin and john heilemann 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.

>> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: we question thin this evening with an assessment of i.s.i.s. and the latest from ukraine. earlier today, president obama started a trip to europe, stop in estonia and wales later this week. ukraine accused russia of invading with ground forces. president putin said he could take kiev in two weeks. n.a.t.o. said it would boost to protect members in. iraq, i.s.i.s. has come to a temporary halt.

a siege broken in amerli. a video shows the beheading of steve coll, held captive for i.s.i.s. over a year. joining me to talk about the latest developments and u.s. role in both conflicts is richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations. steve coll is the dean of columbia university journalism school and writer on the "new yorker" magazine. welcome. >> thank you. >> charlie: you wrote a piece, the assad government may be evil but a lesser evil. therefore -- >> it is a lesser evil. it doesn't have a global reach like i.s.i.s. doesn't have a global ideology. you can't simply fight i.s.i.s. in iraq. you have to fight them in syria as well otherwise they have a sanctuary. we need a ground partner. we can provide the air force. we need somebody to hold the ground and take the ground from i.s.i.s. we only have a couple of

choices. ideally the syrian opposition. problem is they're weak, divided. you're talking years before they would be strong enough. another would be a pan-arab force, the jourdainians and others. again, history shows very hard to organize these. arabs often aren't willing to provide the foot soldiers. what are you left with? we won't do it ourselves. >> charlie: no boots on the ground. >> then you're left with, by a process of elimination, some sort of a process of working with the syrian government, maybe try to cut a deal, essentially saying, look, you lay off the internal opposition, you lay off your own people, we'll lay off you and they can begin to retake territory some time, perhaps, we do start working gradually with a local opposition. it may be having a tacit or possibly formal arrangement with the syrian government which we

don't much like but sometimes in life you have to choose. >> charlie: is that in any way similar to what's going on in iraq where shiite militias have been a force and helped by american air attacks. we have no relationship with them, not working with them, but somebody's coordinating what's happening in the air to what's happening on the ground and the de facto result is we're working with them. >> exactly right. it's both alike in that parties killing each other not long ago are at least now not shooting each other o and are now working together. other thing that's similar, is syrian, united states, russia, saudi arabia may have to coordinate their policies. we have been on opposite sides of proxy wars but when an enemy is an enemy to all, you have to put aside some of your initial preferences and work together in a limited fashion. so, yes, there are interesting

possibilities. >> charlie: this question, what about the countries like saudi arabia, a large sunni nation who have been supportive of the united states, are they going to sit back now or are they going to support this effort knowing shia are involved? >> it might be extraordinarily difficult for the saudi government. they are strategically opposed to iran on every count, have real problems with the shia, and one way or another, it is said, facilitated the rise of i.s.i.s. by "private donations." the saudis recently have belatedly woken upup to the fact that at the end of the day they are in the crosshairs of i.s.i.s., because i.s.i.s. will see them as the impure custodians of the two places. so it's in saudi arabia's interest if only out of self-preservation, to get syria out of i.s.i.s. six months ago, it was said if

saudi arabia and syria could park differences and coordinate, i think that's possible. >> charlie: and you think the president is going to deal with ukraine as well as this. tell me how you measure the threat of i.s.i.s. to our national security, to the national security and the general security of the middle east and europe. >> quite seriously, charlie. both directly and indirectly. directly, like you, i worry about these guys with american passports, european passports going home after this graduate school in terrorism. i worry about that and i think people like ourselves in new york, we've got to take this extremely seriously. i fear this, quite honestly, down the road. but also, these guys are not content just to destroy. in their minds, they want to create. they call themselves the islamic state or caliphate, they have

ambitious designs and are not looking at just iraq and syria, but potentially jordan, lebanon, middle east, and interests in this part of the world and beyond. this is not a self-limiting group with a national or territorial set of ambitions. >> charlie: far different from al quaida. >> far greater ambitions and capacity. >> charlie: in terms of organizations, money, financing, a whole range of things that give you power to go beyond where you are? >> absolutely, plus they have ththe momentum. it's important to break their momentum in iraq and that will slow down the recruiting and then you need to take the battle to them in sir. i can't w -- i. >> charlie: nothing but this kind of relationship will be able to stop them. you can't do it by air power alone, you can't do it without troops on the ground in the same

way you had troops on the ground in iraq. >> air power has its limits. it can't acquire territory. people can hide, as we say, or recently saw in gaza. so air power alone can't ferret out a group. it can get them to act defensively and put them more in a crouch, but ultimately you have to go after them on the ground. we're not doing it for understandable reasons. we need a local point, or as in the case of iraq, a set of local partners. >> charlie: you're not only a diplomat but you read a lot about international affairs. i was struck by a piece today by winston church hill when he was talking to franklin roosevelt and said, after the war, this is an unnecessary war. it didn't have to happen if we had done more. is there some kind of corollary there? >> just as consequential as what you do in foreign policy is what you don't do. people are so much more rigorous about assessing the pros and cons of actions, if we do this,

it will cost that or the risk. they are rarely as rigorous when it comes to assessing inaction or some version of the status quo. we used to have the phrase paralysis by analysis. i think the administration somehow got that. they did all the analysis, showed how every course of action wassiesicky or costly and they ended up being paralyzed and didn't assess with the same degree of rigger the costs of not acting in syria. >> charlie: do you think they've changed and are on a road where they recognize the threat and prepared to change? >> they're clearly in motion. it's happening slowly and incrementally but quite reluctantly. what worries me is there's a lot of history to suggest that incrementalism can be a bad way to go about things. you lose the shock and awe thing. you really want to break the momentum and send a message, and i worry we're not doing that. >> charlie: what's the risk of doing it? >> the risk of doing it is -- >> charlie: you do it and

maybe stop i.s.i.s., but are there unintended consequences that would be very bad? >> absolutely, there's a risk you do a little bit, doesn't work so there there's the pressure for escalation. there's the risk faio something and you kill, as will harntion innocent people and you alienate the population which could reverberate against you. you may motivate people to join the other side, an example of the west killing muslims or arabs, which, again, is one of the reason it is essential we have local partners on the ground. >> charlie: that's why the president has been slow, we have been trying to simulate local partners, right? >> yeah, but it's not enough to say we don't have good options when -- >> charlie: we don't have a strategy is what he's saying. >> we could have and should have done more to develop an interior partner in syria in the last couple of years. iit was never a priority to develop a syrian opposition.

>> charlie: there was a fear we would get drawn in at the time. >> absolutely. >> charlie: there's also the issue of, so let's assume you stop. what happens then in what do you do about syria then? or do you then go to assad and say, okay, we've finished off i.s.i.s. t we now have to talk about what's going to happen in syria. he says, what do you mean? i helped you to beat i.s.i.s. i'm elected. i'm the president of syria. if you want to defeat me, let's make a deal. >> you put your finger on a key thing. this is not a permanent answer to the challenge of syria. assad won't be able to gain the territory of his entire country for military and demographic reasons. >> charlie: because the 100-plus 200,000 syrians have died. >> he won't have that support. you probably will end up with a new political map inside sir. i can't that's again you will want to have a diplomatic compliment to whatever you do on the ground militarily and a circle of countries, the "friends of

syria," some of a contact group to meet including the iranians, saudis, the united states, the russians and others to begin to sort out what the future political character or personality of syria will be. there has to be a special place fofor assad and where the sunnis would have a place. you can end up with aloite and a sunni dimension of syria. >> charlie: steve coll joins us. stay with us. >> charlie: as i said, steve coll joins us. a staff writer for the "new yorker" magazine, but even more importantly, the dean of the columbia university graduate school of journalism. another tough day for journalism because we learned a journalist was beheaded.

gev mgive me a sense of contextn this. >> there are an extraordinary number of journalists at risk in jihaddest-controlled terrorist in syria and a number in captivity. i don't think the full number is publicized because negotiations are going on in some cases. >> charlie: for ransom. involving european governments whose policy is in some cases to pay ransom for citizens held in captivity by al quaida or al quaida-related groups or others. apparently the bad news today is the second of two american journalists we knew i.s.i.s. was holding has been executed as actually i.s.i.s. threatened it would do when it beheaded james foley abilit about a week ago. >> charlie: richard and i were talking about syria if we have to do something and if we have to make a temporary relationship with assad then we have to do that. how do you see what has to be done with respect to i.s.i.s.

and all of this sort of shifting sands of alliances that become in play? >> i.s.i.s. is a grotesque organization and a very serious problem in and of itself. it's also a symptom of a deeper instability and failure of international policy in iraq and syria. i.s.i.s. feasts off the suffering of sunnis in syria, primarily, as well as the agree advantages of sunnis in iraq, and it's strength is a manifestation of desperation among tribal populations, ex-military officers and other people rallying to its black flag to try to rebalance their situation. >> charlie: part of the general corps of saddam hussein. >> in some cases and i think a lot of mid-level and low-level sunni officers from the syrian military have come to the rebel side and ended up in i.s.i.s. there as well. but, you know, you have tribal leaders, you have oil engineers, evidently, since they're operating oil fields.

you have people who can maneuver in battle and are experienced in military organization and then you have sociopaths and teenagers and foreign volunteers. so it's kind of an eclectic organization. it may not be very stable internally. so the question is how do you break it up and also build a deeper stability in the region. i.s.i.s. is fighting a desperate war with assad that both sides may want, whether it's really wise of the united states to stand back and watch more syrians suffer and die, all that war plays its -- while that war plays out, i'm doubtful, because it's from the suffering the extremism has asen. the alternatives if easy would have been pursued by now. >> charlie: has the president been, in a sense, paralyze bid overanalysis and waiting for the right form of government and the right combination of forces to come to bear and what's happened is i.s.i.s.d1s grown in strength starting in syria and

then iraq? >> well, i think it's hard from the outside to understand exactly what they have flipped through in their options charts and why they have taken the kind of restrained decisions they have taken. but from the outside, i would say there are a couple of failures that seem evident on the ground. one is there's been an enormous optimism or overinvestment in the development of a national unity government in baghdad which could lead an army into battle in sunni heartlands where i just don't think there's any evidence that that shiite-led government can control territory and address the grievances of sunnis who are defecting. so first thing you have to do is be realistic about the capacity of the iraqi state and realistic about the project of -- >> charlie: you have to be realistic about the fact you can't stop i.s.i.s. without going to syria. >> that's correct, but you also have to have a strategy that crosses a fictional border and

includes a strategy in iraq. the second thing is the hard problem of syria where this reluctance to take the risks that farming, equipping and building out the free syrian army with moderate groups in syria those are substantial risks. >> charlie: what about relationships with assad's forces. >> tacit or explicit. there's a question of whether to tacitly or specifically side with assad in i.s.i.s. i would be interested in richard's views about it. it would be deeply disturbing and a cynical allegiance even passively. >> charlie: convince me. at least potentially the options that are feasible. is it desirable? no. but when you look at the range of options from doing it ourselves, to organizes a force to building up a viable resistance soon, you may say too

hard, and some time of a tacit division of syria where we leave assad alone in the alowite areas and work with the soons may be the least of the options available. things deteriorated over the last three years as you know better than anybody. >> the tacit division of syrian to alowite, that's where instability will arise from. >> charlie: what is assad prepared to do? >> he wants to survive. >> charlie: surely he wants to do that, prepared to survive, for sure. but what is he prepared to do in order to survive? >> well, he may decide his principle strategic target is no longer the syrian civilians or opposition but is i.s.i.s. and we need to incentivize him to get to that point. >> charlie: do we have to make a deal with him to incentivize him? >> we make a deal with him or his backers including iraq.

we encourage him to see the wisdom on some sort of deal that he focus on i.s.i.s. which he hasn't done heretofore. >> do you accept the idea he invited i.s.i.s.'s rise because it feeds his narrative? >> he certainly tolerated it and did not make it his strategic priority to eliminate. >> did he want to go all out with him now to reconquer the original syrian state? >> that's where it gets interesting which you could persuade the russians and the iranis to sign into it. you have a region where everyone is waking up saying i.s.i.s. is really dangerous and we could ultimately be a target and that has everybody thinking. >> you listed two options, pan air force and building up a moderate sunni opposition which may be too hard. are they really? have we tested it? >> i don't know that we tested the pan air force. a lot have looked at the syrian

and moderate opposition force. it is tough going. you have risk. you have to assume loss of equipment, heavily infiltrated. it's tough three years ago but is tough on steroids now. >> charlie: how about iran? here we are, our great enemy, we're negotiating like crazy to get them to do something about their nuclear policy, and here's an opportunity where we have the same enemy. >> we have been trying to develop this grander bargain with iran for a number of years, now, with nuclear programs resolution would be essential to that -- >> charlie: what's the grand bargain? >> well, the bargain is we tap, freeze, or otherwise make a deal around their nuclear programs. >> charlie: what else? reate a path of normalization in which the natural partnerships and shared interests the united states has with iran are easy to list on

the spectrum. afghanistan, counterdrug stuff, always on the agenda. al quaida is another one. the difficulty at the moment is iran's interests and iraq's are not the same as ours. >> charlie: they want a shiite control. >> and in the region, if our partners in stabilizing the sunni areas of syria and iraq are naturally jordan, saudi arabia, u.a.e. and turkey, they all live in existential dread of iran and particularly see our bargaining with iran as something that undermines their interests. and i'm not sure how it is that we're going about trying to untie that knot, but i feel the presence of that knot. i don't know if you would agree in the way that we're trying to play both sides of this problem. >> this is difficult. we have to try to resolve the nuclear issue with iran, come up with an outcome enough for them and not too much for us and the israelis.

at the same time, we have to understand if we can do that it opens up other forms of cooperation. if we can't, that will dominate and in a few months we'll have a crisis with iran. the question beyond that is can we find limited areas of cooperation wheel that's hovering in the background -- aftionz if they can sort out elections, obviously syria and iraq are issues number one and two, given the internal politics here, given the internal politics in iran, ain't gonna be easy, but it is certainly worth trying and remember in the cold war we always talked about linkage. this is nonlinkage. can you find cooperation. >> charlie: you have ukraine, russia troops, and the president of russia saying let's talk about and negotiate about eastern ukraine and what happens to it. you've got n.a.t.o. saying we've got to figure o out what we cano

and have quick-response forces there. so where are we? >> it's interesting. in the two months we'll mark the 25th anniversary of the end of the cold war in november and here we are having this conversation which is not one we expected. n.a.t.o. went through two and a half decades of an identity crisis, now it's got its identity back, it's its old identity. we have to worry about bungs within the confines -- we have to worry about russians. we have to strengthen the the other members of nate to before you in some ways or at the same time you worry about ukraine, you have to worry about the countries to whom you have explicit article 5 obligations, n.a.t.o. would be hard pressed to meet them. it has to close the gap between commitment and capability. >> i was listening to the

interview with the estonia defense minister and he thinks the west n.a.t.o. capitals and the north american capitals understand the seriousness of what's going on but that still are having trouble thinking three, six months ahead as to how far putin might push this if he feels he can with russian speaking populations other than eastern ukraine and each time we wait to see how far he's willing to test his expansion, his proxy policy, he pushes it 10% further down the road. if you look at what's going on in eastern ukraine, building supply lines to crimea, basically building a permanent russian' speaking state, de facto state, this was completely predictable because that's exactly what he pursued in georgia and other places in earlier eras. but to start contemplating instability in russian-speaking populations in place like the ball ticks where there are

article 5 obligations -- >> charlie: a little hard tore o do something about. >> is n.a.t.o. willing to get him to back down -- >> charlie: and this is all part of his calculations that, in the end, they're not going to do anything to force him to back down? >> i don't know what putin assumes and part of me thinks it's a heavy improv quality to him that he sees what the reaction is. he's his own decision makerrer. unlike the soviets where you have institutionalized you rockeries, you don't have this. putin makes it up as he goes along. we want to bolster the sanctions and tell putin there is an opportunity twin your pressing on and having a total loss facedown. >> charlie: doesn't he already

know that? >> i don't know what he knows or what he seriously believes but i think we ought to repeat that. we do have to, again, two the rest of n.a.t.o., understand that this is not a symbolic or rhetorical organization. n.a.t.o. is a military alliance at its core. right now, the military dimension of it is seriously underresourced and the capabilities are nowhere they need to be. >> charlie: this is clearly the toughest moment for the obama administration. >> in foreign policy. >> charlie: yeah. it's obviously a pretty lousy economy that he inherited and the financial crisis, but international affairs. and the administration, again, sympathetic to their outlook in general. they do look tired. i mean, the white house kind of national security council advice, the sense of energy engagement, the travel, the planning, there's a sense of this being a time when they weren't really prepared for the

degree and variety of crises they have to manage. >> charlie: can you ask is that a product of intelligence, poor intelligence, poor anticipation, all of that, that reflects somehow not being, you know, as savvy and as paying attention sufficiently? >> one of the things that's frustrating -- >> charlie: that's easy to say. >> the president is, of course, right. the united states does not shape global events. it can't control all of the crises and wars that arise. even areas where you may, with the benefit of hindsight, see errors, you're still uncertain as to what would have unfolded. so if you can't control all of this chaos, then the temptation of restraint and passivity is great. >> charlie: so the limitation of powers you talk about. >> well, there is this kind of rhetoric that surfaces from this administration i find frustrating which it sounds like we can't force the world to come to our agenda.

therefore, if the world falls apart, it's not on us. >> there is a bias in the administration and it's the bias of worrying about the courses of action rather than the cost of inaction. and we've seen it time and time again. this is a ministry that defined it's greatest accomplishment of what it closed down which is the war in rierk and getting close to that point in afghanistan. essentially, the world is not cooperating and even more is responding to this. there is a sense the united states is less active, less reliable, lots of problems with the congress on domestic issues to what we didn't do a year ago with syria. but the world is beginning to -- what you're seeing is not just a spread of power. what's interesting to me is you're seeing a spread of decision making, where other countries, whether the japanese prime minister or the saudis and others are saying what are we going to do and we're not going

to rely or even defer as much as we used to to what washington wants, and that's what's beginning to happen. it's a world in which american influence in some ways is going down, even more than american capability because people don't believe we're as ready to use it. >> charlie: so one more time, what are the options for the president with respect to russia? >> well, i think, you know, there has to be leadership to continue to signal deterrents through sanctions and preparation -- >> charlie: angela merkel and others. >> and obviously the broad framework has been created, and i don't know exactly what the next increment of sanctions should be, but clearly the signals of deterrents and preparation are not influencing putin's decision in eastern ukraine sufficiently. >> charlie: when you think about this president, i remember being in line at one of the

washington things early on in this administration, and you served this administration, the person in front of me said something to the president, walked up to shake his hand -- >> this administration? >> charlie: no, bush administration, 41. the president said something and he said, well, you know, he and i totally agree on foreign policy, i've adopted his foreign policy. and that was something you heard early on in the administration. turns out not to be true. >> i think they adopted parts of it which is the sense of limits anand restraint. i don't think they adopted the degree of national leadership or energy. when the united states put together -- >> charlie: did they change or they didn't want the lead. >> both. this administration's priorities is not to play as active a role in the world. again, it was to limit the call on foreign resources. in addition to building up sanctions and n.a.t.o. and all that, also energy, we have got

to accelerate a serious transatlantic energy project. you can't do it quickly but the goal has got to be to reduce european energy dependence on oil and gas of russia. we've got to take energy exports away from russia. >> charlie: good to have you. >> charlie: the mid-term election are 63 days away. republicans are expected to maintain power in the house of representatives. all eyes on a few hotly contested senate racesy the g.o.p. hopes to wrest control from the democrats. gubernatorial races hang in the balance. the outcome having wide rang implications for president obama's final years in office. mark halperin and john heilemann a analyze the mid-terms, managing ed torts of bloomberg politics. pleased to have them at this table pore the umpteenth time.

happy fall to you. >> and to you. >> charlie: summer was great, i love vacation, but great to be back. and big issues we have on this show, you know, foreign policy and politics, which includes foreign policy these days, mid term elections. give me an overview. >> i think you can look at this in a lot of ways. for each party, for the democrats, can they do enough mechanically targeted messages from the president, the vice president, the clintons and others to remake the electorate in these taed senate states and some of the governor's race where is voters who don't usually vote in the term turn out to vote in a mid term, that's hard to do. on the republican side they need a message. you need -- republican strategists will tell you they don't think they can live up to the possibilities of running unless they appeal to middle class and working class voters. social issues largely not in their favor in most cases.

foreign policy, there's a lot going on in the world but you don't see a lot of republican strategists saying we'll win on foreign policy. what can they do on economics. right now they're against obama care and raising the minimum-wage. they have to be a party of ideas and now they're not. >> charlie: you completely confused me. i thought the republicans were clearly going to win the house and have a real chance of majority control and it was the democrats on the defensive saying, no, the republicans don't know what they stand for. >> game is majority control of the senate. they'll pick up maybe six or 12 house seats but that range is pretty set. if the game is the senate, there are three they'll almost certainly win. they need three more. go race by race today and the next three are not obvious and that is the game. >> charlie: those three are what? >> here's to your point, charlie, six months ago there's no doubt that people thought republicans were in a perfect position to reclaim control of the senate. the story has really changed in

these six months and what has happened is we do not have a mid-term election that looks like the previous two. in 2010 we had a big wave election. very big republican year. in 2006 we had a big wave election, big democratic year. that's not what the data shows about this election. this data shows now six months ago republicans thought this would be a wave build around obamacare. over the last six months the law has become more accepted, the problems with the web site were ironed out as enrollment was exceeded and as democrats found a way to talk about the popular parts of the law, that issue that is not totally dissipated, there are still many on the rights and a lot of republicans are still driven by anti-obamacare sentiment and they will vote against that issue, but in the middle of the electorate the heat has come out of the issue and it's a state by state thing. if not a wave election, you have a huge amount of unpop learts in both parties.

republicans more unpopular as a party than the democrats. the economy is doing better. no one unifying theme for republicans and the democrats ven gauged in trench war fair state by state against a lot of republican spending in a lot of cases. even these democrats are still very much in the race in those races. you're looking at one of these nights where easily the reps could end up with 53 seats on election night and also could end up a couple of seats short. >> charlie: money will play a big role? >> always does in senate and gubernatorial than house and presidential races. but it's interesting how much money has already been spent and in the key six or seven senate races up for grabs how much has moved. millions of dollars have been spent in arkansas, north carolina, colorado, other places and those races have been

static for six months and all are within the margin of error and nothing has moved. there's not been enough disparity of money and not enough of one issue that has been able to move anything in these hotly contested seats. >> charlie: in the sixth year of the obama two terms, anti-obama is not a decisive factor? >> it's a big factor but to win the majority of the senate races, republicans have to beat some number of democratic incumbents, who aren't scandal ridden. all incumbents are focused on keeping their job. so yes a lot of republicans will turn out to be a check on the president but to beat a well-known, in most cases pretty well liked incumbent democratic senator and well funded, you need a strong challenger. republicans got all the

challengers they hoped to get, the establishment did, but none of the candidates have proven themselves as giant killers and incumbent beaters. no doubt the animating principle will be on election day but if the democrats can change the electorate and if these incumbents can convince voters that they deserve another chance, another term, they may not get the majority. i keep saying to people who say it will be a huge republican year, they'll take the majority because of the anti-obama sentiment, go for the next race. beating mary landrieu in louisiana or mark begich in alaska -- i think the fourth one to follow, the sixth they need to net is the open site in iowa, easier in some ways than beating an incumbent. incumbents in the red states, they've all got parents who were

involved in politics and they're well-known brands, and in most states that matters. >> charlie: is the game plan jim messina put together in 2012 the game plan the democratic party needs in 2014? >> there's no doubt. certify the voters and get them out. there's no way to run a mid term election like the presidential election. in 2012, jim me si nay had the ability not to be challenged in a democratic primary and had the resources to pick the counties in the six or seven or eight states they cared about and focus on the individual voters in question and going to talk to them over and over again four years and drive them to the polls on election day. you can't do that in the same way in a congressional election, but the notion of expanding the electorate, again mark just mentioned a couple of times, the notion of what messina and plouffe and those guys

understood, it's different in a presidential than nonpresidentle election year, but needed all the voters to come out in really big numbers the offset the political head winds barack obama was facing. democrats in this race need to do that on a state-by-state basis. so you see targeted efforts undertaken in all these contested senate races to try to, in a place like louisiana, get the african-american vote up, in colorado get the hispanic vote up, and it's the process of targeting. it's possible to take away the lessons of '12 and apply them in '14. >> another page they can take because republicans at the top have no real message is they can say we don't have that many new good ideas but we're for raising minimum-wage, equal pay for women, keeping medicaid,

medicare, social security going. the economic issues the middle class cares about, they can say, as joe besiden says, don't judge us in comparison to the almighty, judge us in comparison to the alternative. they can say, we're for minimum-wage, equality for women, preserving medicaid, medicare, social security, all that tests well. republicans don't have the ideas to counterthose things. the democrats even then the economy for a lot of americans doesn't feel better, they have as president obama said in 2012 to say, forget everything else out there. here's what they're for. that is a page you saw from the president and vice president on labor day, as the core of their speech sounded like 2012. >> republicans are historically unpopular and congressional republicans are historically

unpoplar. in voters of the middle of the electorate who might be undecided or persuadable, they have become associated with nothing but nilism. they saw it in the shutdown last fall and hurt republican counties in the off year elections and we saw it this summer when the immigration border crisis flared, you saw republicans calling for action and congress not being able to do what they said, and standing up and saying they wanted president obama to take unit lateral actions even though they were suing him for taking unilateral actions, and a lot of folks just seeing republicans saying no, no, no to everything.

>> is ever 4 *6789d >> charlie: unions, with they make a difference? >> the beauty of the president's message on labor day was the big base turnout, and the president was remarkably, given the tenor of the times, pro union in his remarks. this week we'll see fast food workers striking trying to get increase in their pay and the president was encouraging of that effort. so i think that, again, if you go state by state, alaska, for instance, very large union presence, less so in arkansas, louisiana, north carolina a decent preseason, in iowa there is, so there's no doubt the president wants -- again, the democrats want to replicate notion of center left coalition with messages that can simultaneously inspire people on the further left, a lot of union members as well as in the center

and an advantage the democrats have with union members which they didn't always have in the past is with the social issues off the table, the union workers are facing less cross cutting pressure. a union worker in a purple or red state would say that party is for gay marriage and that makes me uncomfortable or some other social issue. now if it's purely economic, republicans could have a strong economic message for a labor movement but they don't. they're afraid of talking about it. they're more associated with bashing unions and a lot would wrath tore that. the one issue you don't hear democrats talking much about is guns. you don't hear a lot of democrats talking about gun control in the context of the mid-terms because they want that populous middle class, working class economic message to be the dominant message and that's their best chance. >> charlie: what are the stakes for 2016 in 2014? >> the stakes are always high.

for president obama, maintaining democratic control of the senate is, on the one hand, essential if he wants to try to get anything done in the course of the next two years. he may have found it impossible to get things done and even hard to get things done at the beginning of his democratic control. but give if he loses both house, he's out of luck. with filibuster process, isn't even functional control. for the republican party to let the senate slip away when it seemed easily graspable, if that were to happen, it would be an incredible disappointment to the party and possibly a wakeup call about their need to figure out this positive agenda that is required to win at a national level. in terms of policy, let's be clear, we're headed into the last two years of a second-term

presidency. these are not years that historically are productive in terms of domestic policy. foreign policy, sometimes things get accomplished and the world doesn't let america rest. these are not two years where we would expect a lot, especially a hotly contested race. >> charlie: in addition to the question you answered quell was the idea is any particular likely candidate to be enhanced by the mid term elections? >> i think there is three ways that could happen. first, in terms of party being benefited, the big governor races, it does help if your party controls. wisconsin's competitive, florida is competitive. >> charlie: walker is in a tough place. >> he is but if he wins that helps him personally if he decide to run, but if kasich wins, he's clearly -- hillary

clinton will have to go after political speeches. they won't be book events or sitting down with interviewers from leading interviewers. >> charlie: what's on their mind as opposed to the political mind. >> she's going to have a give a speech on where america is. for all the republican candidates, it's possible someone who wants to run in '16 as a republican can get to the end of cycle and not have gained much and still do well. but you get a leg up in honing your message -- paul ryan has one of the best stump speeches in the party, if he gives that for candidates -- >> charlie: are they thinking about innovations like that? >> there's that and the working class message, but it's technically he's more comfortable. he's saying something, a stump

speech from the heart about what he really believes and it's inspirational. >> you will see a lot of the republican candidates or punitive candidates, people thinking of running or definitely running, they all will be out the next two months and we'll see not just hillary clinton, but we'll see a lot of them. the country won't see them because -- >> charlie: by but you guys -- can. >> -- but the political press corporation will follow them -- press corps will follow around. >> after the day of the mid-terms, the job one is changing on immigration, developing a populous economic message, building an infrastructure that shows people you can run against a billion 1/2 dollar clinton campaign. all that starts the day after mid-terms in earnest. >> charlie: are you impressed or less than impressed by what hillary clinton has done so far if she intends to run for president. >> less impressed with the book

tour and failure to respond to some controversy involving their personal wealth hasn't spoken well to her skills. she's still so far away in the class and field. >> charlie: on both sides. on both sides, yeah, and there's still time. a question in all cases when people underperform early, one to have the good things about underperforming early is it can either be a foreboding, or they can turn out to be wakeup calls and hillary clinton had a rough go with the pre-launch of her campaign. she may have well learned less sons and end up doing better. mark and i will be watching carefully not just hillary clinton and all the republicans, but we'll be watching for bill clinton who will be out in the course of the next two months. >> charlie: what do we learn from him? >> he's still a formidable

political figure, but i find it amusing and illustrative, but he will be keeping score in any race. if mark pryor wins in arkansas after bill clinton has been there in the next few months, bill clinton will be thinking, you know, i did that. >> and where he goes versus where barack obama can go will be a fascinating thing. because in most targeted senate races, it's not a contest. >> charlie: who's ahead in the republican primary -- not primary, but in terms of where the candidates are on paper? listen, "new york times" has a story about governor christie getting foreign policy schooling. >> i think the first tier to watch, not knowing who will run, not knowing the results of the grand jury investigation are veb bush, chri chris christie, paul, john kasich and rob portman i'm

adding to the list. that's the establishment. >> charlie: what about rand paul. >> i don't believe the establishment will let him be nominated. i think he's talented. as long as hillary clinton is the person they have to go against, they need someone who can win states against hillary clinton that obama beat romney in and i don't think they'll bet on paul for that. >> he'the thing he wrote about ferguson is to challenge the steal orthodoxes of their own party. he's building a real organization. i don't think he can be a real nominee but he's had a good run so far. >> charlie: what you and i look for is what is an

overriding arc of a narrative? and maybe paul ryan has it, but the thing i'm looking for from hillary clinton or whoever wants to be president, tell me in a way i can understand and resonate shows me a s shrewd lok at america today and its fortunes and how you combine an understanding that makes the pub public believe that you're the best way to meet the challenges of the future and that it's human. >> from your life experience, and it has late pixie dust to it and hillary clinton challenges what is the original narrative and message and vision, because people want elections about the future. >> charlie: elections are about the future not a referendum on the past. >> and the bar is so high for her. she has high bars, but in the absence of a republican who can win 270 electoral votes she may not need declare those a local

lot. she may just phras just need tor them. >> they have to tell how the american story and their story are meeting in a certain moment. if you think about hillary clinton's story over her life there's a lot of material to work with. she has a compelling story to tell. she's not told snit a lo -- shed it. >> charlie: there's a lot of history, too, for power of argument. >> that's forward. it is. but that's not enough as we saw last time. it's not enough. >> wasn't enough last time. probably didn't talk about it enough. but she's got the material. she and her husband have in some ways lived -- in some ways it's a clar caricature, but they have

lived an incredible life and have been in the center of our lives so long and if she can distill it into pixie dust she can do well. >> she has plenty of time to do it and she's a better person, a better politician, better candidate and better leader than she's shown this year. >> charlie: absolutely. thank you. >> charlie: your show pro meres when? >> october 6. that would be a monday. >> charlie: something you can't miss, every night you want to be there to find out what's going on in politics. visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications

captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide..

this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. >> a september to remember, a big week on the data front could determine how soon the federal reserve might raise interest rates and which way stocks could hit. >> hollywood cyber attack. celebrity photos stolen and published by hackers. how safe is your data and how to make it more secure. >> and beyond lipitor. how to get the next blockbuster cholesterol drug. this and more for "nightly business report" for tonight, tuesday, september 2nd. good evening, everyone. welcome, just like that, it is the unofficial end of another terrific summer. vacations are over, including mine. the beach chairs and umbrellas get put away and the