just shoot your business card receipts and they're automatically matched up with the charges on your online statement. i'm john kaplan and i'm a member of a synchronized world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. be careful what you wish for is the old saying. when it comes to the united states congress, a different version may apply. be careful what you posture for. for the past week, it has looked for all the world like president obama was on an irreversible path to launching a unilateral, congressional free strike on syria. it sounded that way when obama began speaking in the rose garden yesterday. >> in a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted.

after careful deliberation, i have decide that the united states should take military action against syrian regime targets. >> this is the announcement the political world and actually the entire world was preparing for, but then the twist. >> i will seek authorization for the use of force from the american people's representatives in congress. we heard from members of congress who want their voices to be heard. i absolutely agree. >> this is not what anyone saw coming. congress will now decide whether to authorize the missile attack that the president wants to launch against bashar al assad's regime. what members of congress publicly demanded over the past week. the house and senate chorus grew bigger and louder. not without our consent, they cried. the question, though, is how many of them really meant it. because, let's face it, there

are two truths about how members of congress typically approach thorny questions of international diplomacy and military intervention. they love to dramatically raise questions, demand answers and insist on being the deciders. they're just as happy when the white house ignores them and works their will. if that decision goes wrong, it lets congress say, but we tried to stop them. i know. there are plenty of house members and senators who genuinely and sincerely want to be on the record when it comes to using military force. but as a whole when it comes to congress and foreign policy, abdication has been the rule of late. abdication is not an option now. when congress returns from its vacation, there will be a debate on capitol hill about the attack president obama wants to launch and there will be a vote. that vote will have teeth. congress being on the hook for any action that's taken and any consequences of action not taken. for the president, it means the battle for public opinion, the battle to force congress to see

syria the way he does is now on. >> here is my question for every member of congress and every member of the global community. what message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? what's the purpose of the international system that we built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons that has been agreed to by the governments of 98% of the world's people and approved overwhelmingly by the congress of the united states is not enforced? >> it will be a debate like no otherenforced. >> this will be a debate like no other we've seen. stakes are high and partisan lines will probably blur, maybe vanish together. talk about it, bring in richard wolf wolffe, executive editor, stephen dennis, covers house leadership for roll call and lynn sweet, washington bureau

chief for chicago sun times. i guess usually when you have a statement, press conferences, choreographed in advance, we know exactly what's going to be said. i sat there watching this yesterday and i found myself riveted is the word but also surprised. i didn't see this coming, i don't think anybody did until the moment the president said it. >> you weren't the only one. this has been about diplomacy of message sending. send a message to assad, about chemical weapons and have been all week, maybe more than that and strikes, how they will be limited, how it was all done. they were rolling towards it with unprecedented speed for this president and administration. conflicting messages at a time when they are trying to send messages is conflicting, troubling, confusing not what diplomacy is supposed to be. having said that, what was out

of character was the rush to the strikes. what's much more characteristic, build an approach, taking time, making a decision, unmaking it. that's what he does all the time on big things, rush, signaling before that, that was very strange indeed. >> do we know what changed? part of the reason everybody assumed this was a done deal and the attacks were going to be launched was the statement john kerry made friday afternoon which was really this sort of powerful, compelling, laying on the evidence as thick as possible. somewhere it seems like between then and saturday afternoon, there was a shift. do we know what happened, what tigered it? >> the bigger picture came into view with president obama, particularly congressional relations when they come back from their very long summer vacation. that is he's jeopardizing his domestic agenda. it's easy for congress to make

the fight over the vote. then you don't deal with the underlying question. so by avoiding the fight over the vote you have obama with international coalition, doesn't have with british parliament vote and realizes he not only has trouble with usual republican obstructionist but a lot of work to do the left with very vocal and mobilized progressive community who is not happy with this doeevelopment. >> richard mentioned this a minute ago what we have in keeping with president obama before. this is president obama as a candidate back in december 2007 talking about maybe a situation like this. this is what he said at the time. the president does not have power under the constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. jay, that is the case a lot of members of congress making this

week as seeming attacks played out. >> he's getting attacked on all sides, the left, the right. he felt like, okay, if i'm going to do this, i'm going to spread the pain. everybody has to go in, spread the pain, take the pain together. rather than being this unilateral decision where he was hanging out there, not just at home but internationally, it became something like we're all going it jump in the boat and see what happens. it's still a question whether it will get through the house. >> i'm told we have kristen welker at the white house. kristen, we're trying to figure out here what changed in the last day or two to convince the president to go to congress for the authorization. do we have a sense of that and the vote? >> we are getting a sense of that. i'm told to some extent the president was divided this past week in his own mind in part because as you point out in 2007

he was a candidate who thought that you needed congressional approv approval. that's what he stated. he was torn internally. then you have mounting pressure from congress, mounting calls for a vote. what swayed the president was that moment in the british parliament, that no vote. america's closest ally saying they were not going to join in with the united states, this limited military action floated. that was the moment administration officials say put this to the side of i have to put this to a voting congress. friday flight after he essentially walked the military to the edge of action he went for a walk with his chief of staff. the two of them talked. it was during that conversation president obama said i'm going to put this to a vote. he then called his top officials here at the white house

together, sat down with them, told them about his decision. they were stunned, tried to convince him otherwise. this is limited military action. you don't need congressional approval. he was determined. he was steadfast and said, no, this was the course he was going to take. by saturday i am told most senior administration officials were on board with the decision. but certainly made for tense meetings at the white house. that's the evolution we're learning about this morning. >> kristen, a quick for that ul, advisers, stunned, push back against it. is that because they are afraid of losing the vote or a president not being good for foreign policy. >> both. concern about the president but deep concerns particularly about the vote, in the house, as jane was just talking about. one thing interesting, we had

lawmakers coming out, many of them praising the president's decision. of course, when you actually put this to a vote, some of the lawmakers who said, yeah, this is a good idea. we want to vote on it. we're going to vote no. this is tricky. the white house is saying even if congress votes no, there is still an avenue for president obama to pursue -- launch a military strike against syria. the politics of that gets more complicated. certainly there's a big question mark surrounding what congress is going to do. it is very uncertain this will pap through a sharply divided body. >> thanks. really good information. >> thanks. >> stephen, to pick up on what kristen is reporting. maybe if we lose the vote, still a chance to take action. what triggered this decision by obama was what happened to britain. they took the vote, lost the

vote. cameron said, i don't have support of the people. i can't do this. interesting -- the idea that is what inspired obama to do this, humiliating rebuke of a leader of a country kind of interesting to me. >> i think there were some other things. the nbc news poll friday morning went off like a rifle shot in washington. something like 80% of american public said congress needs to approve this before you go. politicians get where they are because they don't go against 80% of the public on something like this very often, especially when there's no -- there wasn't going to be a victory parade tuesday after these missiles landed. this was going to be a potentially ugly, messy scenario where on tuesday he wouldn't have cavalry coming back saying, hey, you did the right thing. there was no cavalry in congress calling for these strikes. the republican leadership had

not blessed them. they said, hey, you need to do a better job selling this. the leadership had been silent. there's no international cavalry either. it makes perfect political sense now to say, congress, you asked for this vote. step up, do the right thing. >> here is the hot potato of it's interesting. to give you a sense of how funky the coalition on this could end up being, here is ted cruz who has never had anything good to say about president obama, this was him yesterday reacting to the announcement. >> i am very glad that president obama has listened to the bipartisan calls for him to go to congress and seek congressional authorization before any possible use of force in syria. that was the right thing to do. >> obviously he's calling for, hey, we want this hot potato. a lot of members have been.

it's interesting what steve just said, though. 80% of the public wants congress to approve this. the same public that gives congress 6% approval rating. maybe ted cruz really wants to vote on this. how much does congress really want to vote on this? >> i think what's telling is he didn't give a position. that is what you're going to hear for the next few days. people are going to relish the idea, we made him come to us for a vote. fine. where do you stand? especially for this crop of senators running in 2016, that's a big question. the iraq war helped define president obama as a presidential candidate. these are big votes. they are usually -- this is a yes or no vote on a simple draft -- i saw the draft that came out last night in the declaration. you can't say there are clauses and autographs and paragraphs

somebody slipped in. >> the legend of the 2008, hillary clinton voting in 2002 and paying the political price. >> john kerry. >> right. this is why they like to duck this stuff. >> these are defining votes. the rhetoric of somebody just saying isn't it great, we made him come to us. at this point, okay, fine. lets get to the heart of it. want to give a hint of where you're thinking is on this? >> that's the question. we'll look what it looks like on democratic side, republican side after this vote. after this. would be great, bute really just need "kid-proof." softsprings got both, let me show you. right over here. here, feel this. wow, that's nice. wow. the soft carpets have never been this durable. you know i think we'll take it. get kid-friendly toughness and feet-friendly softness, without walking all over your budget. he didn't tell us it would do this. more saving. more doing.

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all right. congress is going to decide whether we launch a military strike against syria.

lets take a look how it shapes up in each party, how this vote shapes up right now. lets start by look at the democrat -- this is a quote from tom cole, republican from oklahoma. this is what he said yesterday. obama hasn't got a chance to win this vote if he can't win the majority of his own party and i doubt he can. he is a war president without a war party. richard wolffe looking at the democratic party, democrats on capitol hill, what do you make of that assessment? >> lets come back to the british situation for a start. the reason they lost was actually because two things, they were incredibly bad at votes, two or three dozen of the conservatives own majority were on vacation, several of the government minister. you have to be able to count and win votes. when you look at the democratic party clearly a substantial minority that will vote again this resolution. so the only way this gets through is for both sides of congress the majority and minority to come together. you're not going to have a clean

majority of either side. you're going to have a coalition. that's what failed in britain, you had a coalition splintering, people in the majority not showing up to vote, opposition voting against it to embarrass the leadership and that could yet happen. if the tea party guys all get together and say no matter what ted cruz say, we're going to, then the president is in trouble. a big majority of democrats voting against it, national security democrats voting yes, they may just squeak a majority of democrats. >> let me address that point. how much deference to i'm a democrat, this is my party's president, i want to sposht my party's president if he wants to take this action. how much of that on capitol hill? >> it's interesting. you see coalition formed under the last clinton era.

both parties split by foreign policy. under bush those definitions went amp, came partisan going into iraq and afghanistan and really pointing to party lines. now the old coalitions, libertarians and doves getting together from the two sides and the hawks and bleeding hearts getting together and you have these two sort of split parties. a lot will be in terms of driving majorities, a lot will have to be loyalty to the president. some will be very strange bed fellow coalitions which brought us into war with kosovo and somalia and other places but reformed again natural foreign policy. >> what is nancy pelosi going to do? nancy pelosi could really deliver votes. is she going to be on board with this? >> she is on board. pelosi is on board. here is what is remarkable. boehner has told obama he's going to give a vote. everyone out there you might think, what's the big deal. doesn't everything get a vote?

in the house that's not true. so if boehner is allowing a vote without first insisting on the support of the majority, then it's an up or down vote, this actually is quite rare in the house. as jay said, this gives the chance for these coalitions to build that might lead to a majority. but we're seeing what's rare in the house, the true wheeling and dealing. this isn't deal making because we don't have elements of legislation that can come in and out on it. i also want to put on the table here, i think the details will matter. the members are going to be getting classified briefings. they will have access to information. in this series of questions people want to know, what are the implications of helping rebels who may not be the friends of our friends or even our friends. what exactly do you mean by limited military action? when you get more information, i think these coalitions talked

about here will take more shape in the days to come. >> nancy pelosi is critical. she came out 100% behind the president yesterday. she had been milquetoast earlier in the week. harry reid came out 100% behind the president yesterday. nobody in congress is better at whipping votes than nancy pelosi. that matters. the thing this reminds me the most of is the first t.a.r.p. vote, wall street bailout. that didn't go so well first time around, the entire congressional leadership behind it. yet when it went to the floor john boehner called it a mud sandwich and worse behind closed doors. they voted it down but eventually voted yes. >> there's only one shot on this one. >> i think you're going to see a similar kind of coalition where the leadership by and large in both parties is going to support the president here. the question is will there be followership? can john boehner -- he's got

very dicey support among his conference. eric cantor number two hawkish on syria in the past. presumably trying to get republican votes here. i think the president really needs to do is get his own people on board. the congressional black caucus, a number of them. >> very tough. very tough to do. >> very opposed to any new military action in the middle east. dick durbin, number two senate democrat still not on board. he's the whip. he's got to get him on board. he probably will. dick durbin voted in the iraq war he's not a fan of overseas military engagements. >> is very supportive of obama and that's why he's keeping his options open. won't show his hand for a while. >> a lot more on the republican side, too. first we have somebody who will get a vote on this senator angus king. we'll talk to him after the break. [ male announcer ] this is jim,

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president is right to seek congressional approval before moving forward with action in syria, called the action there incredibly complex. the lawmaker will have a chance on whether or not the congress convenes. joining us a member of the intelligence and armed services committee live from brunswick, maine. senator, thank you for joining us this morning. lynn sweet earlier in the program said we can stipulate everyone in congress is going to say, great, wonderful, the president is coming to us. he did the right thing. the real question now is how are you as a member of congress going to vote on the military force in syria. have you decided yet? will you support military action in syria? >> i have not decided yet. the first is intelligence. the ghost of iraq haunted this debate. it certainly haunted the debate in the british parliament. the first we have to determine, there are going to be hearings in washington, classified

hearings on military intelligence, the option. number one question, how solid is intelligence this, in fact, was a use of chemical weapons by the assad regime. that's question one. the next question is what's the response and what are the consequences and results of the response. so i think i'd be surprised if too many members told you right now that they knew how they were going to vote. i like to, you know, have the information before i make those kinds of decisions. this is an important -- important decision. there's going to be a lot of work between now and then. there's going to be a debate. you're going to see an old-fashioned debate on the floor of the united states senate with the senators in their chairs and a lot of people making some passionate arguments. one thing i think it's very important to clarify and that is that the president is not asking for authority to generally inject ourselves into the syrian

civil war. this is all about chemical weapons. and the question really before the house, i think, will be what, if any, response does the civilized world make if it's determined there was, in fact, a use of chemical weapons. for 90 years there's been a general world consensus this was unacceptable. the question is are we going to let it go? is there going to be some kind of response. beyond that is the question about to what extent do we get entangled in syria. i can tell you the people of maine and i spent all day on the road yesterday, absolutely have no appetite for getting involved in another war in the middle east. the narrower question is what's the response to the use of chemical weapons. >> you were in the region recently. i think when you came back from the trip you talked about being open to make kind of millimetered military strikes, arming some of the rebel groups. i guess i look at that and the question and you started to get

into it there, there has to be if you decide morally speaking there has to be some sort of answer to the use of chemical weapons, the answer is a surgical limited strike that leaves assad in power, doesn't it raise the possibility assad can say, hey, the united states came after me and i'm still standing and it only makes them stronger. >> absolutely. that's the second part of the discussion. what are the consequences. you can't assume a static situation you're going to lob a situation in there and nothing happens. all kinds of results. as of yesterday we had a meeting scheduled for wednesday from the armed services committee on what are the military options and what are the possible responses. assad could fire a missile into israel. iran could get into the game. this is dangerous territory. if you've read the guns of august, you know how wars can start almost by accident. we can make these nice

distinctions about, well, it's a response to chemical weapons. all of a sudden there can be escalation. that's why this -- i tell you, i have spent time over there. it is the most complex policy question i think i've ever encountered. there's so many factors and it's so difficult. on the other hand there is this principle that the world community has adhered to for almost 100 years chemical weapons because of their horrendous nature, their effect on civilian is just not an acceptable way of going. one of the big deals i think in the next week, i think it's good to have this little bit of time here, is whether or not the international community and how they line up. we already know britain has opted out. the real question to me are the arab stays and gulf league and what position they take. if they stand aside and say, well, this isn't something we're too worried about, i think that

makes it very difficult to persuade the congress and american people that somehow we've become the defacto enforcer of a world norm nobody else is willing to step up and enforce. >> richard wolffe has a question for you. >> i want to follow up on that point. you've described the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. are you saying that consensus is dependent on other countries say it's also unacceptable to them and where do you draw the line? fran is saying unacceptable and they would join military action. america, if the united states says it's unacceptable and the united states can take action, is that not enough for you? >> well, i think -- no, i think we've got to hear more. as i mentioned, i think the gulf states and arab league have an important role to play here. what i hear on the street and it's a fair question is who appointed us policeman of the world in okay. we've got -- you've got an

international norm. but if we're the only ones willing -- have the willingness to step up and enforce it, it raises a question of what is really the believe in that norm in other countries. i'm not saying that's a litmus test for me but it's certainly one of the factors. i think there's got to be a lot of discussion both in the congress but also among the american people. you talked about the poll that 80% of the people thought it should go to congress. i think it's 99% of the people that i'm hearing from do not want us to get involved in syria. so the president and those who think this is the right step have a lot of educating to do over the next 10 days. by the way, i think the president kicking this over to congress was brilliant. not necessarily politically but congressionally but also because congress has a tendency to stand on the sidelines, ring its hands

and criticize whatever the president does. now the congress is going to have to step up and say, okay, we wanted this vote. we're going to face it, take the vote and understand that these votes are going to be on our record. we're going to have to live with it. you know, it's not going to be easy. i'd just as soon not go on the record on it but i'm ready to do it. i think that's our responsibility. that's what the people sent us down here to do. >> all right. senator angus king in brunswick, i think my parents are right down the road from you today. thanks for joining us this morning. we'll pick it up and talk about all these senators and members of congress going on the record. we'll look at that when we come back. for max volume. the volume igniter brush shapes lashes up and out so you get bigger, hotter, totally maxed out volume. ♪ hot enough for you? ♪ [ female announcer ] new flamed out mascara from easy breezy beautiful

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that lets you swipe images to multiple people. the new droid ultra by motorola. when intelligence matters. droid does. we interesting like here i'm going to look for the example from 10, 12, 30 years ago that fits into this. there is a parallel, a precedent from what we're seeing that played out before the gulf war, when george sr., after iraq

invade kuwait, set a deadline, started amassing troops in the desert. congress started saying, no, we want to authorize this, we want a vote, before the january 15th vote he said we're going to put it to congress for the vote. i'm not saying i'll abide but we'll put it to the vote. his message sounded similar to what obama said about the vote. >> i think iraq has demonstrated no flexibility whatsoever, and i think the meeting we're having here today now takes on even greater importance because i would like to see congress send a strong signal they want united nations supported. >> the idea of sending a strong unified signal this is not what the president wants but united states government wants, united states wants. jane, that vote ended up being

very close, 250-183, senate 250-247. it was close. how is this going to play out? white house sent a draft of the resolution over to congress. is that the draft they are voting on? is it going to be changed? how will it play out. >> we'll have to wait and see. they have to do a final, this is the bill we want to happen. what amendments pass, what amendments have enough support. it's really unprecedented the idea of basically congress with amendments, if they do add amendments to it hamstringing the president in foreign policy, which is very unusual. usually a president has his own purview to be commander in chief and can do whatever he wants in terms of military intervention. if they do hamstring him, does he choose to listen to that. >> example, putting something in that explicitly says no ground moves. >> you have hawks like john

mccain and lindsey graham came out and said we want regime change. if you have an amendment that says we insist on regime change, how do you handle that? put troops on the ground? you're not? it's very unusual really to have legislating foreign policy this way. it's going to be fascinating to watch. >> i want to put something out on the table i think might be interesting in the context of what the obama administration team is at. that is under president obama he has created an atrocities prehevention council. this is a climate where you have united states ambassador samantha power, pulitzer prize winner for writing a defining book on genocide. who talked about how the united nations, a few blocks from here, the fight just to define genocide. obama's administration is involved in a way other presidents have not been with systematically dealing with atrocity prevention. i think that does influence and

color what you see the administration doing in putting a potentially on the line trying to respond to the horror in syria. >> susan -- samantha power -- susan power, an exercise guru. they are a lot more hawkish when it comes to intervention. >> that's why it's interesting to see. united states now, anyone think otherwise, is not going to do anything much even if she were there. she goes way back to obama, his days as a senator, was influential then. this is a topic one of the centerpieces of what she's about. i think this is clearly with this creation of this council that hasn't got a lot of attention yet. samantha power was on that council until -- she still may be when she became u.n. ambassador she had to tep down. this is a topic that is very specifically on the obama agenda. so now you have atrocity. he feels the need more, so i

think, because he has very clearly defined this is something he wants to take action. >> so speaking of that, i want to put this out there. this is part of the justification, whaf in the resolution the white house submitted last night. the objective of the united states use of military force in connection with this authorization should be to deter, disrupt, prevent and degrade potential for future uses of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. there's that term again will we will pick it up, stephen, once again, pick it up right when we come back from this break. the media and millions of fans on social media can be a challenge. that's why we partnered with hp to build the new nascar fan and media engagement center. hp's technology helps us turn millions of tweets, posts and stories into real-time business insights that help nascar win with our fans. i'm, like, totally not down with change. but i had to change

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okay. i rudely interrupted. steve, you're about to say? >> look, i want to get back to the draft resolution. it gives the president authority to do basically whatever he wants in syria, incredibly broad resolution. it doesn't say limited, doesn't say short-term duration. it says he gets to decide how long a duration, how big we go into syria, doesn't have any real limitations on it. that is just not going to be what's voted on.

members of congress have to go back to their constituents and say i voted for limited strikes. even if you look at nancy pelosi and harry reid they talk about limited strikes. the president talks about limited duration. that's going to be in that draft. going to be in that drft. >> how is it going to work in terms of who introduces it in the house? >> i think it's going to be a similar process to what happened on t.a.r.p. if you remember hank paulison secretary treasury said i get to spend $100 billion any way i please. members of congress laughed him out of the room. there were negotiations, late night negotiations on a weekend, the bipartisan leadership got together, what is the language going to be. you're not going to have three or four votes on this. you have one shot. >> it will be a bipartisan crafted resolution, you think? >> no question. they need poth parties involved, the leadership involved.

what do we need to put in this resolution to get in the votes. >> i want to get this in. what do you make of this, john mccain and lindsey graham all on board, we cannot in good conscious support isolated military strikes in syria, not part of overall strategy that will change the momentum on the battlefield, so they are basically saying we might vote no because we want more. do you think that's an empty flet? >> no. i think they are fighting through. they will say, we support regime change, too. we just don't think these strikes are the way to do it. ultimately syrian people will bring about regime change. i think the resolution will go both ways. i think there will be attempts to limit it. great, we want it limited, to expand. of course at some point we want to expand it as well. you've got to give something to everyone to give them votes and cover they want to say i voted for something limited,

expensive. that's how you get a coalition. >> don't forget there's an issue of money. september is money month. money runs out for government at the end of the month. house has to pass something to keep it running. one of the big issues, what are we going to have for defense spending. you already have some senators saying before we do this, we need to make sure we get that defense spending back up. so there might be some demands for taking care of some of those defense spending needs from the president. will he cave on that? this is going to spill over into these other issues. >> 30 seconds here, jane. >> a fascinating six weeks. not just war powers before congress. you've got the budget, debt ceiling, immigration, all of these huge trains stacked up for the next six weeks. part of this is obama throwing the gauntlet down for congress and saying can you be functional, guys? can you do this? not just for this but all of these bills. we've got all of this legislation out there. lets see what we can do. >> we go through all of this,

back to the debt ceiling. we'll be back having conversation about familiar partisan lines reasserting them. thank jane, steven from roll call, my old employer and lynn sweet with the chicago sun times. there is one word that haunts the debate over syria. you probably know what it is but i'll explain it next. i'm angela, and i didn't think i could quit smoking but chantix helped me do it. i told my doctor i think i'm... i'm ready. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. i knew that i could smoke for the first 7 days. i knew that i wasn't putting nicotine back into my body to try to quit. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic

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me mentioned this early if you want to understand the risk president obama is taking by letting congress decide whether to intervene in syria, look at the unscripted drama that played out in britain's house of commons. excuse me, i thought we had the video there. sorry, so much for the dramatic video. of course if we had the video playing it would show prime minister david cameron intent on using the country's military to

join in the attack was undercut by elected representatives of the people. >> it is clear to me that the british parliament reflecting the views of the parish people does not want to see british military action. i get that and the government will act accordingly. >> there's that magical video. anyway, so what we do know is no matter what happens, britain is not going to be a part of it. there is one overriding reason for that. >> we've got to learn the lessons of iraq because people remember the mistakes that were made in iran. >> iraq, that is the four letter word that thwarted david cameron, the four-letter word that hovers over the president's determination to take action in syria. >> there's a certain weariness in afghanistan, certain suspicion of any miller action

post iraq. >> so make no mistake in a different time the road to intervention would probably be an easy one or at least a much easier one and we probably wouldn't be talking about a congressional vote here. the scale and brutality of bashar assad's reign was apparent before chemical weapons entered the picture, it came after the president of the united states drew the red line. it's not just boots on the ground but on the table is a targeted, limited airstrike, to back up the red line and make some kind of stand for the civilians that have been slaughtered. iraq has changed the way we think about these things. it gives us pause that wasn't there before. it makes us hesitate, creates doubt, feeds doubt. we think about consequences, the bigger picture. the what happens next question that seemed abstract a decade ago, that's become the unanswered question that haunts the debate. we remember how we were supposed to be greeted as liberators and

how many thousands died in the years after saddam fell. a targeted limited no troop strike sounds benign but we wonder what happens when it doesn't change anything, assad acts up again. the reality how the public opinion is shaped, how representatives are formed when it comes to military ac. how we remember the last great conflict frames the basis for how we think about the next one. lets go back to january 1991, the days before the gulf war. we talked about it a few minutes ago of the president george h.w. bush was seeking congressional authorization to evict iraq from kuwait. across the country there was doubt, fear, and trepidation and it's because there were memories, raw, painful memories. memories that weren't even two decades old of vietnam. those memories loomed over the congressional debate will in that debate there were generational contours, forced by very different memories of two very different conflicts and

were impossible to miss. >> i guess younger members are tired of hearing of world war ii types using the prelude to that war as a model for foreign policy. for so many of you, your war was the vietnam war. that war shaped your thinking. one way or the other different war, different lessons. >> as we said, the margins were thin but bush did get his war in 1991. almost as soon as it started iraqi folded and fled with very few american casualties. the troops came home and a great national celebration ensued. at least america had kicked its vietnam syndrome. but that 91 gulf war, shockingly easy gulf war became the new standard for intervention. we could throw our weight around without being sucked into vietnam. that is the lesson america kooch took. it cleared the way for airstrikes thaended bloody

conflicts in bosnia and kosovo, made intervention that much more palatable for all of us. it made the next case for war a lot easier to make. when george w. bush wanted his own war with iraq, the public was with him. it was time to finish the job we started in the '90s, right? remember how easy that had been. this time votes weren't close. when bush got his war, that brings us to where we are today. there is a compelling case for entering in syria, also compelling reasons for restraint. the elephant in the room is iraq. what role iraq should or shouldn't play, ponder what to do in syria, tackle what comes next question, what comes next if we do go in after this.

we're talking about how the shadow of iraq is hovering over

the situation in syria. still with us richard wolffe executive editor of msnbc.com. heather, executive director of the national security network, former state department speechwriter under president bill clinton, josh rogin, senior correspondent for national security for "daily beast," former diplomat and official under george w. bush now at american university. so heather, start with you, i send it up there before the segment. everybody has iraq on their minds in some way. the experience and example of iraq. i know we can say there's a lot of distinctions between what is proposed, what's on the table here. is the vote that congress took on iraq after the 9/11 attack was the culmination of almost a decade of efforts to push us into war with iraq exactly, by the way,

because the '91 war was limited. so in iraq, by the time we get to the place that the american people and the british people are quite rightly thinking about, there had been a lot of groundwork laid and a lot of back and forth in american politics and a lot of really land mines laid in american politics, whereas with syria, what's happening right now is i'm afraid just the beginning of what's going to be a much longer story as the u.s. struggles with the chemical weapons, the humanitarian, the regional implicatio implications, implications for israel and iran's nuclear program. we're going to be having this conversation for a decade. you know, arguably the question is what can we get right now, what land mines can we avoid laying for ourselves in the future? >> and it's -- you know, i go back and forth with how to think about this. we have some examples from the 1990s of these humanitarian interventions that were limited in scope and that, you know, bore successful outcomes. i wondered at a basic level, do you think we would not be having

this debate, this would not be going to congress right now, this wouldn't be as contentious as it's become politically? would we be looking at this as an extension of kosovo, an extension of bosnia? >> i think in one way, we're seeing a return to what we saw in the clinton administration with cruise missiles. with we use military action to achieve limited diplomatic gains without a sense of what's going to be happening afterwards. the biggest difference between the iraq war and the syria war is the iraq war, we were proposing an invasion and a rebuilding of a country, which is a big proposal. president obama is proposing two days of strikes. there's a scale issue, but there's an intention issue. there's nobody who thinks that president obama is eager to intervene in syria. he spent the last 2 1/2 years avoiding military intervention in syria. he feels like he's being dragged into it. now he's going around the world making a case for a limited intervention he's really not a

fan of and doesn't want to do. we're led to believe he's conflicted on it. it's not a model for anything. what we've seen with barack obama is he was against the iraq war. he decided in that one case we should have a duty to protect civilians. in this case, he's not even making the argument we're protecting civilians, but protecting this international norm. there's no pattern in the mind of barack obama. he does these things ad hoc. in this case, we can't connect them because he's not connecting them. >> it is strikingly similar to the lead up to the war in iraq. i was in the bush administration in the bush white house dealing also with congressional democrats and with members of the media, with "the new york times," with nbc. the herd mentality that took over to buy into the bush administration's narrative that saddam hussein had to have chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction and was determined to use them against

us was something unquestioned. i remember going with a key member of the bush national security team to see president clinton and he putting his arm around her, telling her not only was the intel right, but she was doing the right thing morally. it was not only a mistake, it was based on manufactured evidence. here, nobody is asking this basic question, except for our friends in moscow, what if assad didn't order this? what if this wasn't a syrian troop chemical attack? what if this was perpetrated by al qaeda affiliated oppositi oppositionis oppositionists? the consequences for going into syria are even more grave than iraq. if we go in and degrade and weaken assad to be the extent other al qaeda affiliates have, if that's what happens, and we think they're going to stop there, that's the definition of insanity. >> now, i've heard people advance that scenario, i guess, that this was not actually assad who ordered this attack. maybe it was other elements of

the military that he didn't directly control. you're saying maybe it was -- >> or the al qaeda -- >> what would be the -- john kerry put a lot of evidence on the table the other day. >> no, he didn't. compared to colin powell, it's a joke. >> what would be the evidence for what you're suggesting? >> the russians and the chinese have people on the ground. they didn't pull their diplomats out. they didn't pull their people out of syria. they went to the last chemical weapons attack site in march. they did forensics on the ground themselves. they found two striking things that have not been covered in the press here at all. one was that the rockets used to deliver those chemicals were homemade rockets, not military, not industrial produced. the other thing they found was the sarin there was not military produced. they didn't use stabilizers. maybe this is totally different. maybe this time assad said, i'm winning on the battlefield, so i'm going to send chemical weapons in for the fun of it. maybe the russians have a point. here obama is going to go to russia, and we think he's not going to hear an earful? the rest of the world does not

believe what we're saying for good reason. we made it up last time. >> josh? >> i'm not one of these people who thinks that all the rebels are good or all the rebels are bad, but there is a bunch of evidence here that i think we should just put into the discussion, especially those march attacks that hillary mentioned. there were signals to intelligence. we caught syrian military commanders talking about this. >> as we did with iraq. we interrogated those iraqis after the fact. colin powell displayed them to the world. you know what they said? they couldn't believe how much we had contorted, distorted, and taken out of context what they were saying on the phone. i spent over a decade in the u.s. government. that is not how syrians do their battle plans, on the phone. >> we should also take a look at this attack. this was a rebel-controlled area that was a key venue for how the rebels got arms into syria through jordan. it was a long desire of the assad regime to take over these neighborhoods. they saw it as a necessary

strategic objective. they set up military on the outside. after the chemical attack, they went in and bombarded and attempted to retake the city. it doesn't really make a lot of logical sense this was a rebel attack on the rebels to make it easier for the assad regime. >> but they're the ones who have the motive for u.s. intervention. i don't know. you don't know either. that's why this needs to be debated in congress. the american people need to debate whether we're going to invade yet another muslim country and potentially kill millions of people. >> nobody is talking about invading. just for a second, nobody is talking about -- >> yeah, just strikes like we did in sudan. >> you just had a lot of time to talk. hold on a second. you say nobody questioned the evidence when it came to iraq. so while we're having the whole iraq discussion, there were plenty of questions being asked. the reason the administration that you were part of said you couldn't wait for the smoking gun was because people were asking questions. to say that this is exactly a

repeat isn't actually the case. you know very well there are real warning signs. there are real lessons people should draw from iraq. but in this case, nobody's disputing that chemical weapons were actually used. in iraq's case, there was a question whether there were chemical weapons collections, whether they had degraded, whether they were usable, whether there was an imminent threat. in this case, there's no imminent threat. no threat to the united states directly, and chemical weapons have been used. you say it'sed ad hoc, josh. all of these situations are ad hoc. this is closer to be bosnia and coa kosovo. >> i was also a member of the clinton national security council staff when they bombed a pharmaceutical plant in sudan, again without evidence. this is not something that is unique to bush, you nounique to clinton, or even obama. the 1991 intervention in iraq to get iraqi troops out of kuwait that we thought was so clean and

we patted ourselves on the back, osama bin laden went back to that. the u.s. decision, taken under clinton with very little thought to keep tens of thousands of u.s. troops in saudi arabia and continuously bomb iraq, then to bomb sudan, to bomb other places, these are not clean interventions. >> but it does -- again, it does get back to the more basic question here of -- we talk about evidence specifically of the chemical weapons. we also have evidence of 100,000 people being killed over the last two years, of unspeakable brutality being prerp traerpetr this regime. >> president clinton has had two years to engage in serious diplomacy. you have a serious foreign minister in iran. you have a serious foreign minister in china. you have serious people there. the obama administration has said time and time again, no, assad has to go. >> heather, let me get to that issue. let's take the -- have we not

tried a diplomatic approach to syria? >> there's no question the administration has tried hard, has had multiple conferences, worked very hard to pull the syrian opposition together to have a credible syrian opposition that excluded -- >> that's not diplomacy. >> has worked with the russians, worked with our allies. there's also no question this administration said because of iraq, we don't want to put so much effort into syria to the exclusion of other things. i think looking at where we are now, we all maybe wish, i certainly do, that they had tried harder. but the biggest lessons of iraq and of exactly your setup is, first of all, we don't want to even get pulled into anything that looks like a quagmire, which led us to be maybe more standoffish than we should have. second, to this little fight we were having before, there is no longer any standard of evidence you can present that people will believe. we could go on arguing, you know, until everybody watching

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we have a bit of breaking news here, i guess you could call it. just moments ago on "meet the press," secretary of state john kerry revealed that the united states has evidence of sarin gas use in syria, adding, quote, the case is building for an attack. we have sound. let's play it. >> let me add this morning a very important recent development that in the last 24 hours, we have learned through samples that were provided to the united states that have now been tested from first responders in east damascus and

hair samples and blood samples have tested positive for signatures of sarin. so this case is building, and this case will build. >> josh, we just started to pick this up in the last, you know, segment. i think everything that john kerry says in terms of evidence, in terms of building a case, is being measured. how do you factor that? >> just to pick up when we left off, i think one big difference here is that the bush administration clearly was making the case for a war. the obama administration is making the case for a mild punishment followed by a return to the diplomatic track. let's remember the policy here is to go through a geneva process with the russians and the assad regime and the opposition for a political solution. they haven't abandoned that. in fact, they keep saying after this two-day strike or whatever it is, they're going to go back to the negotiating table. you can say that's not genuine or that their diplomacy isn't successful or that's not realistic, and those are all

arguments people can make, but that's the policy. that's a huge difference. the obama administration is strenuously trying to avoid getting entangled. >> that is one of the things that sort of bothers me a little bit about this, i guess. in a sense, we are rightfully so concerned about not having another iraq, not repeating another iraq. if we believe what's been put out there in terms of this will be a surgical, precise, limited attack, then it could almost do so little, the effect could be so limited and so benign that it leaves assad in power and he's stronger. >> people also patted themselves on the back over libya. we got rid of gadhafi. we were decisive. we changed the balance of power, and we got a dead ambassador. people don't ask the important questions. they don't think about the consequences. it comes back to -- >> but it -- >> president obama said he would uphold it when he came in. i want my money back i gave to that man. he doesn't have a responsibility to punish. the united states has no responsibility to punish 37. >> hang on.

>> you can argue as a progressive responsibility to protect, but the u.s. has no basis in american law or international law, a responsibility to punish. >> there is no responsibility to punish when somebody uses chemical weapons against civilians? >> no, there's not. there's not even precedence. >> of course there is. >> what you do is a fact-finding mission. what kerry has done today should be called for what it is. it's another kind of curveball putting it out there on the table. why doesn't he wait for the u.n. to do a thorough investigation? >> hillary, if the united nations inspectors, which they left 24 hours ago, they have a report that's going to be due. if that report confirms what the united states has said, that there's evidence that the syrian government has used chemical weapons on its own civilians, do you then accept the evidence? >> but international law -- >> but you would wow then -- you have expressed clear skepticism. >> i have no reason to doubt it. i didn't think my president under president bush would lie to me either. i have no basis to doubt my government except it's now happened before. >> but you -- hillary, hang on.

i'm trying to clarify this point here. you said you, let's let the united nations go in and have an investigation. the united nations was there, conducted an investigation, and a report is due. will you accept that report if that report says chemical weapons were used against the people by assad? >> of course. i also accept that one of the investigators have already said it was the opposition. i have november reason to doubt it. i have no reason to doubt these people. the point is, even if it's used, and i certainly will accept evidence that's presented. there's no reason to doubt it. the key is, what do you do after the fact? the united states always thinks and has thought this since the end of the cold war, that we can just go in and kill ingting les viable to do. this would actually protect civilians and human life. you present the evidence to the government. you give them an opportunity to

respond. then you work with them so they don't do it again. >> let's just leave the evidence question aside. it's an important one, but it's all hard to assess. one of the common threads between iraq and libya and this situation is this measure, can we do this? is it easy or not? the reason we engaged in libya, the reason the bush administration thought it was so eager to go into iraq was because they thought it was easy. the reason they have been reluctant about syria is because they think it's extremely difficult. the people advocating, whether they're on the hawkish side or humanitarians, inside the white house, inside the administration have been reluctant because they think it's very, very difficult to execute. syrian air defenses are robust and extremely difficult to overcome without loss of life, american loss of life. so that is an important measure here. this president isn't just talking about proliferation. he wants it to be limited because it's so difficult to

execute. >> hillary, hang on. i want to get heather in here. i raised it a minute ago. given how difficult and complex this situation is and given how limited the operation would be if the operation takes place, what happens if it really doesn't change the equation at all, if it doesn't change assad's thinking? what happens then? >> we've been pretty explicit that it's not going to change the situation in the near term. in another way, it already has changed the equation. for example, assad isn't using the phone to talk to his generals anymore. the whole way they were conducting themselves, they now know we can hear. so the day-to-day operations have changed. the last week they've been spending time moving prisoners around, moving equipment around, moving weapons around. assad's comfort level with how he can behave in his own country will never be the same. at one level, we have already changed things on the ground. second, and i think the american people need to know this and it needs to be an important part of the conversation, because syria is so difficult, because the

situation there is so terrible and because it affects us because of the weapons of mass destruction, because of our allies israel and turkey, because of the threat of spillover in jordan and lebanon, this is going to go on, and the u.s. is going to keep being involved. so we shouldn't dilute ourselves that whether we vote up or down, whether there are two days of cruise missile strikes, this is going to go on for years. the best outcome is that we have a political process that contains the violence, that diminishes the threat to civilians, that contains the role extremists can play. americans need to understand this isn't something we can isolate ourselves from and pretend isn't happening. >> okay. and this is going to go on because i'm sure there will be more to talk about in the days an weeks ahead on this show and others. for now, i want to thank msnbc's richard wolf, heather herbert, josh rogan, and hillary levert.

here's an awkward segue, the reason i got very little sleep on friday is next.

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backed by our low price guarantee. so i don't know if it showed, but i have a confession i have to make. i did yesterday morning's show with very little sleep. i think i might have gotten 90 minutes or so on friday night. let me explain. i usually try to physically get in bed by 9:00 on the night before a show. if everything goes right, i'll actually doze off by 9:30 or 10:00 at the latest. that way i'll get pretty close to a full night's sleep and be rested and ready for the show. but i had a conflict on friday night, a conflict that's probably going to cost me a lot of sleep this fall. it's because my favorite team, the kansas state wildcats, k-state, played their first game of the season on friday night. kickoff at the little apple was at 8:30 p.m. eastern time. it ended up being a cles gaose so i couldn't turn it off early.

it wasn't until midnight the game actually ended. also, it was a disaster. k-state, the defend eing champis of the mighty big 12 conference, suffered a devastating loss to the north dakota state bison. anyway, north dakota state beat them. it's a small-time program that doesn't even play in the same collegiate division as kansas state. so i think you can understand why i was so distraught and why i then tossed and turned in bed for a few hours more, playing back the game in my mind, pinpointing the drive, the series, the baffling play call where it all went wrong for my team. why did they stop throwing the ball when they got ahead? i was trying to grapple with how severely this one horrible loss could derail the season i just spent eight long months waiting for. yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's labor day weekend. that means that football is back. it's not all the way back yet. in the past three day, there have been 72 college games and

three more on the schedule for today. the nfl isn't actually going to kick off until this coming weekend. actually, thursday night on nbc, a little plug there for the company, when baltimore visits denver. soon enough, thousands of high school teams all across the country are going to be duking it out for local bragging rights under those famous friday night lights. supposedly baseball is our national past time, but that is not what people say these days. a poll from earlier this year shows that more than twice as many americans prefer pro football to major league baseball. when you then add in college football, it's a complete landslide. when it comes to sports in america, football is king. the question, though, is whether its reign is in jeopardy. there are a lot of reasons that baseball isn't as popular today as it used to be. i have my own explanation. people finally realized how boring it is. there was also the player strike in the mid-'90s. that probably had something to do with it. it took mlb years to recover from that.

also, the whole steroid saga. the tainted records, the congressional hearing, the baseball idols. baseball is still feeling the fallout from that. more recently, it's football that's been under the microscope. medical advances and tragic individual stories have made it clear how easily concussions can destroy lives. just this past thursday, the nfl settled a $765 million lawsuit. that will hardly be the end. even the president of the united states says he wouldn't want his kid playing football. when it comes to amateur football, well, it feels less and less amateur every year. college conferences expanding and realigning into mini pro leagues, making mind bogglingly enormous deals with tv programs. elite high school teams traveling around the country playing games on espn. but still, for all of that, we watch it. we yearn for it in the offseason. we build our autumn weekends around it. we stay up way past our bedtimes when our teams are playing.

we cry when they lose to north dakota state. the 2013 season is here, so we are going to talk all about america's addiction to football, what's good about it, what's not, and whether anything can change it. that's next. we've completely redone the house. it's hard to find contractors with the passion and the skill, and that's why we use angie's list. online or on the phone, we help you hire right the first time with honest reviews on over 720 local services. i want it done right. i don't want to have to worry about it or have to come back and redo it. with angie's list, i was able to turn my home into the home of my dreams. for over 18 years, we've helped people take care of the things that matter most. join today. it's called truecar. and truecar users... save time and money. so when you're... ready to buy a car, make sure you... never overpay. visit truecar.com today.

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football is back. i'm going to keep the sweatshirt on because i'm too lazy to get changed again. we're going to talk about it with selena roberts, the founder and ceo of rupstigo. rob simmelkjaer is a former anchor and correspondent for espn. i talked about some of the issues that football is grappling with. i thought i'd start at a more

basic level and try to understand why these two weekends of the year tens of millions of americans spend months of their lives just waiting for these weekends. baseball used to be the national past time. i think football has supplanted it. i wonder, why? what is it about football that has this appeal? >> i think everybody wants to identify with a winner. you have this hope that every time this year you've got the winner in the game. i think with college, there's an identity. people who didn't go to alabama, you know, will drive down five days before the game and hang out in tuscaloosa to be part of the atmosphere, to be part of that identity. i think that really does drive the passion. it's certainly a sport you can wrap your head around once a week, too. you don't have to follow it on a single daily basis. that really does sort of gin up the stakes a little bit. that one day a week where you can wrap yourself in your team. even if you didn't go to the school, you can wrap yourself in that identity and feel good about it. >> i grew up in massachusetts, which is not exactly a college

spor sports place. but i look at alabama. i look at kansas state. i look at the big-time programs in these states that are not pro sports states. it is like this is the event for anybody in the state. it binds them together culturally. it gives them something to look forward to. i get jealous. >> steve, i did a talk at ithaca university. i said, why do you go to football games? they said, we can drink beer, be in the parking lot, bet on the game, and watch the cheerleaders and have a good time for four, five, six hours and get away from everything. i think a lot of people look at it that way, saying, hey, we can have a good time, maybe make a couple bucks on the game. >> that's an interesting -- i wonder how much, you know, it's a once a week game. everybody is paying attention to the same game. how much gambling is a part -- the nfl would never want to

admit this. i don't know if i want to go this direction, but how much does gambling have to do with it? >> listen, i don't think gambling is irrelevant at all, but i think when you look at the nfl in particular, even more so it's been fantasy football. every single fan out there, whether they're a casual fan or a hard core football fan, has their fantasy team. all over america right now people are drafting. they're drafting their nfl fantasy teams. some people play college. fantasy is a big part of it. let's face it. football is a great product. it is a great television product. the nfl did so many things right over the years that major league baseball did wrong in terms of competitive balance. >> the salary cap. >> salary caps and revenue sharing. every city out there thinks they have a chance to make the playoffs and compete when the season starts. that's not the case in baseball. it hasn't been for a long time. so those are some of the reasons that over the course of time football has just surpassed baseball. >> football is well managed. football also got lucky by

circumstances. i'll give you the reasons. what you said, tribalism. that's huge in the northeast, in massachusetts, where we don't really care about college football. we love the red sox. we love the yankees. that's our identity. because of the violence of the game, they can't play it more than once a week. if you inundate us with product, we get bored. that's what you've been saying. we love to look at things that are violent that don't affect us. that's part of the human nature. four, i've interviewed people who make slot machines. it struck me that the way the brain works when dealing with a slot machine is exactly the way the brain works when you're watching football. small actions punctuated by huge payoffs. you either win, you either lose, but you're into it the whole time and something huge explodes. the pace of the game is perfectly suited for television. some of these things are well-managed, that the nfl tried to do. some of them are luck. but here we are. the nfl is the number one sport. they say college football is number two. i think college football is really the number two sport in

america. everything else has faded away. >> you know, i took a shot at baseball. i don't mean to disrespect all the baseball fans, but the pace of the game is just glacial. >> the thing is, i did a tv show many years ago with frank duford, who's brilliant. frank said 1950 was baseball, boxing, and horse racing. tv took over, and the 1958 game between the colts and giants, that overtime game changed the whole paradigm of sports. people said, hey, this is exciting. of course, you did have a good ga game. but at that point, that's when football exploded. then in 1960 was that violent world of sam huff on cbs with walter cronkite. that solidified it. people said, we're going to watch it. by '65, it was the number one sport in the country. >> something that always strikes me here in new york -- i wouldn't think of new york city as a great college sports town. this is true of the nfl, too.

different neighborhoods in manhattan on a saturday or sunday in the fall, and there are bars just designated, you know, this is the cleveland browns bar, this is the university of minnesota golden gophers bar. people just, you know, from around the country who live here show up at that bar on saturday, on sunday just to watch their team. i don't see it in any other sport. >> i went to auburn university deep in the south. it's everything. you grow up in that kind of culture. you realize when you leave that culture, you're also looking for, where can i get it back? where can i get that feeling back? that's why you go that local bar in new york city and watch your team perform. you feel good because you're around your people, so to speak. what we're looking at is socially accepted barbarism. i think, you know, overall you're looking at the socially accepted is world we love and that we take a part of and when something goes wrong or something goes bad, we rail against it, but we still watch.

>> and that's those big hits. i know in the last couple years when i see those big hits now, i have a different reaction than i did three or four years ago. i want to make it up in the next segment, what we've learned about concussions, about amateurism and what that means. we'll pick that up after this. like carpools... polly wants to know if we can pick her up. yeah, we can make room. yeah. [ male announcer ] ...office space. yes, we're loving this communal seating. it's great. [ male announcer ] the best thing to share? a data plan. at&t mobile share for business. one bucket of data for everyone on the plan, unlimited talk and text on smart phones. now, everyone's in the spirit of sharing. hey, can i borrow your boat this weekend? no. [ male announcer ] share more. save more. at&t mobile share for business. ♪ at&t mobile share for business. cashback concierge, here. what is a cashback concierge? well there's lots of ways you can get cash back. i'm here to help you get the most out of your cash rewards. it's personalized, and it's free. i want that. we have a concierge! at discover, we treat you like you'd treat you. get the it card with cashback concierge.

you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. zyrtec® love the air. ray easterly was a player for the atlanta falcons in the '70s and committed suicide just over a year ago. he has become in many ways sort of the face of what concussions can do to professional football players, to football players in general. this was his widow talking about how it changed him. >> when i first met ray, he was gregarious. he loved jesus. he shared his faith with youth. once he retired from football, he gradually became less and

less able to deal with his injuries, but particularly starts in 1989 he kban to experience insomnia and depression. his personality changed to the point where i had to pinch myself sometimes. i didn't recognize the person whom i'd married. >> i mean, evan, this is how the physical nature of football, the hard hits, the concussions can affect a player, not just while he's playing but for years, for decades to come, for the rest of his life. when i see a hard hit now, i find myself thinking of stories like that. >> when you talk to people like brett boyd or some of the other people i know, i'll call them up say, hello, how are you? they say, hey, evan, how are you? let me get the notes from the last time i spoke to you. there's memory loss. there's physical pain. also, a lot of these guys with the settlement -- probably

people don't realize they're on ssi, medicare. very young. you're not 62. you're in the 65. they have fallen into the safety net. how many players are out there who have fall into the safety net? i can't tell you, but i can tell you of people who have told me who's on ssi or medicare. it is costing the taxpayers money to take care of these players because when they collectively bargained in 1982, in 1987, the mantra was money now, money now, money now. let's take the money now because we're going to die anyway at 54. it's come back to haunt them. i tell the players, you screwed up in '82 and '87. they don't like hearing that, but it's true. >> yeah, let's talk about the settlements. we had some of these formers players who sued the nfl. there was a $765 million settlement that was announced on thursday. what is that going to mean in terms of the future of the issue of concussions in sports? we have had rule changes and

procedural changes. now they have the settlement. >> well, the vast majority of that money will go to benefit the plaintiffs, the former players who were involved in bringing this lawsuit over, 4,000 formers players who are suffering from various degrees of post-concussion syndrome. they'll be helped short term. clearly the nfl is helped by this. the pr of it, which has been so damaging to the league for the last several years, has now changed. the nfl has stepped up. they did not acknowledge or admit any wrongdoing, which is very important in this whole thing. this was essentially like a case against a tobacco company for saying, you are withholding and hiding the harm all this time. the nfl has not acknowledged that at all. so that's good. >> so $765 million is small. >> this is a $9 billion a year industry. it's less than 10% of their revenue just for 2013. this is spread out over 17 years. it is not really financially significant to the league over the long term.

i think the question is, and this settlement does not address this and not yet has addressed this, can this sport be fundamentally safe to play? at the high school level, at the college level, at the nfl level. can the changes that have been made or future changes make the sport safe? that is still to be determined. >> when you have the president of the united states who looks at all this and says, i wouldn't want my kid playing football, it makes me wonder how many other parents out there -- hey, you can play soccer, you can play football, you can play lacrosse. do one of those two, don't play football. i wonder how many are thinking that. >> i think that's the nfl's fear, that conversation is starting to happen in suburban households. that conversation is starting to happen in households where it never happened before. what sport do you want to play? soccer? you have concussion issues, but the severity of the injuries are not anything close to the nfl. that conversation scares the informal. they rely on this being a heartland sport. they rely on people wanting to watch this sport because they know a kid who also played this sport.

what you're going to have in the future if the nfl doesn't address its culture is a bunch of kids who play because they have to play. a bunch of kids who say i know it's dangerous because i've got to because this is my only way out. it's my only chance to do something better for my family. the nfl doesn't want that narrative to spread across the country. then they're going to lose their precious base. people are going to stop watching eventually if they can't identify with the players who are playing. if it's players who are desperate, you're going to have boxing at some point. you're going to have this arena that's much more gladtorial, that's less palpable for the rest of the country to embrace. that's what the nfl fears the most. >> although this conversation that's happen income the salons of manhattan is light years away from what's happening in the fields of texas. 1.1 million boys play high school football. it's the number one sport for boys. it's going to be a long way off before that statistic diminishes. people play it not because they have to but because they love to. >> could it be a regional thing?

i cannot remember where i read this, but somebody had mapped out what the death of football would look like in america. it will start in sort of the blue state, massachusetts and new jersey and will spread from there. >> look at nfl rosters now. the vast majority of the talent is coming from florida, california, from the south. there are not a lot of players up here. it's already becoming more and more regional. but, you know, one thing i disagree with is i think this conversation has started nationally. i think there's always been a conversation between moms and dad, whether it's been texas or the midwest. the mom typically is the one who's like, you know what, i don't know if i want you playing this sport. these headlines that we're talking about right now, the moms are winning that conversation more than maybe she did ten years ago. >> i think we're going to see fewer and fewer 11 and 12-year-olds, but it will still be really popular in high school. it's so unbelievably popular as a spectator sport you're still going to have people who aspire to do it.

i've also heard a lot of criticism. you weren't criticizing, but you were characterizing the settlement as chump change. this was not a slam-dunk case by any means. if you're kevin turner and you're suffering from als and you don't know how many years you have left and you want your family to be comfortable, you'll take a few hundred thousand dollars. they were asking for $2 billion. they got a little over $1 billion when you factor in lawyers fees. a lot of lawyers said it's a pretty good deal for the players as well as the owners. >> i want to bring up something. you have the insurance going up and up and up. at some point, a school board member is going to have to say, hey, look, we have to set some priorities here. do we want to cut back on math programs, social studies programs, english programs, electives, or do we want to pay these insurance premiums? it's not only football. it's hockey as well.

and cheerleading, believe it or not, there's a lot of injuries in cheerleading. there's a lot of concussions in girls soccer too. at some point, these school boards are going to have to start making decisions on taxes. >> until then, we will keep watching. we will move to the next segment, what we should know for the week ahead. we'll have your answers after this. ok, i am coming. [ susan ] i hate that the reason we're always stopping is because i have to go to the bathroom. and when we're sitting in traffic, i worry i'll have an accident. be right back. so today, i'm finally going to talk to my doctor about overactive bladder symptoms. [ female announcer ] know that gotta go feeling? ask your doctor about prescription toviaz. one toviaz pill a day significantly reduces sudden urges and accidents for 24 hours. if you have certain stomach problems or glaucoma, or cannot empty your bladder, you should not take toviaz. get emergency medical help right away if your face, lips, throat or tongue swells. toviaz can cause blurred vision, dizziness, drowsiness,

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all right. i want to find out what my guests think you should know. >> next week i would like to see if peter king on "sports illustrated" follows through with thinking there and refuses to use the word redskins when nfl season kicks off and called them the washington football team. i'll look to see if they follow through with discourse internally. >> talking about a sport that encompasses strength and courage and valor. the original sport is wrestling. wrestling on the olympic chopping block. one week from today the vote will be announced whether

previouslying wi wrestling or squash. >> america in the tennis world is short of poland's place through three rounds of the u.s. open, only one american mansour vives. a man, have you ever heard of him? serena williams playing the only other up and coming american on the women's side. it will be 10 years since an american man won a grand slam tennis tournament. >> i'm going to bring up chris christie. he's not able to bet on the nfl in atlantic city this week, even though his voters said we want betting in atlantic city. he can go it in bermuda, montenegro but not new jersey. that court case is continuing. >> you can't do it in new jersey. but if you happen to be in a place where you can legally bet

on sports, kansas state over louisiana lafayette next week, a bounceback game, my pick of the week. releasing it right now. i want to thank selena roberts. i've got to learn these. mike from npr. thank you for getting up and for joining us. we'll be right back next week. our guests linda, senator cowan and we'll pick up on our friendly debate on when and why the south turned red but first melissa harris-perry on the latest showdown with syria plus president obama's speech at the lincoln memorial why he may be more like lbj than mlk. melissa harris-perry. see you right nowhere next week on "up."

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the new droid ultra by motorola. when intelligence matters. droid does. lives in the white house? plus the republicans political future. why demographics are not necessarily destiny. police treating mosques like terrorist organizations. but first the president's surprising move on syria. good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. we're expecting to hear any moment from a u.n. spokesperson on the findings of weapons inspectors in syria. we're going to bring you that briefing as soon as it starts. but first in an unexed