it's what you do. ♪ ah. push it. ♪ if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance you switch to geico. it's what you do. ♪ ah. push it. ♪ i'm pushing. i'm pushing it real good! this sunday, terror in paris. how were suspects known to french and american authorities allowed to commit these atrocities? >> the more innocents who are killed in the attacks, the greatest the impetus for others to carry out similar attacks. >> attorney general eric holder will join me from paris. inside the mind of a terrorist. i will talk to a journalist who interviewed one of the men who carried out the paris massacre. why home grown islamist terror has been less of a threat in the united states. >> the person who immigrated here 20 years ago named mohamed, their grandson who is mohamed is now mike. >> in 2016, mitt romney is considering a third run for the

white house. what is behind his change of heart? i'm chuck todd. joining me with insight and analysis on this busy morn rg david brooks of the new york times, nbc's andrea mitchell helene cooper of the new york times, and rich lowry of national review. welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." good morning. france's leadership has declared that the country is at war with radical islam. after three days of horrific terror attacks which brought fear and despair to the city of paris. 17 civilians are dead, 12 at charlie hebdo, four shoppers at a supermarket and a police officer. all three attackers are dead as well. an alleged female accomplice is on the run. she wasn't part of the attacks, contrary to some reports out

there. overnight, a german newspaper, the hamburg morgan post which printed cartoons from charlie hebdo, was targeted in an arson attack. no one was injured. two people have been arrested. this morning, a video has emerged appearing to show ahmed coulibaly. the supermarket gunman is pledging support of assistment nbc news has not verified this video. there's a massive rally today taking place in the french capital, part what have the prime minister has called a "cry of freedom" with up to a million people attending along with dozens of world leaders. nbc's chief global correspondent bill nealy joins me now from the rally. tell me about this atmosphere. >> reporter: good morning.

from the very heart of the demonstration, after a week of horror that has seared itself into the soul of france, this is a day of defiance. hundreds of thousands gathering here showing flags of france, israel al jeer are a -- algeria, all coming together. they showed -- had a -- hoisted up a giant pencil, a symbol of free speech here. ready to march, the leaders of britain, germany and israel showing their solidarity. this could be the biggest rally in france since paris was liberated from the nazis at the end of world war ii. as the leaders march and as they meet, they have a challenge. how to confront the terrorism here without overreacting, legally in terms of police measures and without alienating the population. remember, france has a muslim population of 5 million. that's about 9% of the population. any overreaction could alienate

a lot of those people and would be a disaster. it's a challenge to hold the populations together. france's president francois hollande has described this as a test. it is but it's a test not just for france but the whole of europe and the whole of the west. chuck? >> it is. lots of implications for this around the world and in french politics as well. thanks very much. want to talk to eric holder in a moment. the paris attackers were known to the authorities in france and here in the united states. the big question is, how did this happen? our chief foreign correspondent richard engel has been looking at what went wrong and the challenges that face security services around the world to stop similar attacks. >> reporter: these were not lone wolves but trained and disciplined killers on a mission. their victims, executed with single, controlled shots. this is what home grown terrorists look like in the era of the islamic state. like soldiers. the kouachi brothers were known

militants. they had been under surveillance but not for long. counterterrorism sources say they were deemed to be a minor threat. surveillance is ex pensive and time consuming. there were too many targets for security services to follow. this is the paris tourists don't normally see, the slums where illegal immigrants rub shoulders with drug dealers and religious extremists. for islamic radicals, these neighborhoods have long been a source of recruits. this week's attacks in france were tragically foretold. were you surprised by this attack? >> no. france was expecting terrorist attacks. >> reporter: did you think there would be an attack on this scale? >> no. that scale, no. >> reporter: the reason it was so big, at least one of the brothers traveled to yemen and trained with al qaeda there. yemen, somalia, and the so-called islamic state in syria

and iraq are part of a growing number of lawless places where radical islamists are free to train recruits from the western world, give them a taste of real warfare and send them back to the west with money and a mission, to launch spectacular attacks on soft targets. this week in paris, three radicals killed 17 people and brought a world capital to a standstill. others may try to repeat their success. the question is, can western governments find a way to stop them? richard engel, nbc news, paris. >> we're joined by the attorney general, eric holder, who is in paris for a security summit today with intelligence and law enforcement officials from around the word. he announced that another international summit on preventing extremism will be held at the white house next month. mr. attorney general, welcome back to "meet the press." let me start with a first question here, the french prime minister declared france is at

war with radical islam. would you say the united states is at war with radical islam? >> i would say that we are at war with terrorists who commit these heinous acts and who use islam. they use a corrupted version of islam to justify their actions. we are bound and determined to hold them accountable, to find them wherever they are. and then to try, as you indicated, to come up with ways in which we prevent young people who become attracted to this radical ideology from becoming members of these groups and perpetrating these heinous acts. >> now, it seems that according to various sources we have here that the united states warned france that these two brothers in particular had gotten training in yemen nearly five years ago. is this an intelligence breakdown that happened in france or a law enforcement resource issue?

because they can't follow everybody. >> well, i'm not sure at this point that it would be fair to comment in that way. we are still dealing with the immediate impact of these terrible acts that occurred here in france. there will be time for an after-action analysis of exactly what might have been done better. as we have done in the united states, when we have had to deal with these incidents ourselves or where we have disrupted plots, you always look back and try to determine how you might do things better. i will say that the french have been among our best allies, our greatest friends in this fight against global terrorism. and we are here to express our solidarity with them. >> considering though that it looks like yemen -- al qaeda and yemen had some impact on this operation, in 2012, john brennan, when he was the counter terrorism aid, he said that there was -- you had made progress degrading al qaeda in

yemen. and yet they are clearly still inspiring and possibly funding attacks. what's the status? >> i don't think there's any question we have decimated core al qaeda. the threat is from affiliates. chief is on the arabian peninsula. we have had an impact on them. but they remain a very viable threat. they have the ability to inspire people around the world, unfortunately. they have explosives experts in al qaeda, in the arabian peninsula, in a capacity that is unmatched by any other terrorist organization. so they remain a very viable threat that we have devoted considerable attention to and will consider -- will continue to focus on. >> considering that these two brothers potentially were essentially a sleeper cell for

nearly five years, if their training took place in 2012 and here it is 2015, are you concerned that there are potentially people in the united states that maybe the intelligence community asked you or the fbi to start following these folks, you stopped following them because you thought they didn't present a threat, do you have to reconsider some folks here in the united states that maybe you had thought weren't a threat that maybe they are, maybe they are sleeper cells? >> we are constantly evaluating where we stand with regard to those people who we have suspicions about. we have a universe of people who we focus on, using all legitimate means. and keep track of them. keep track of their movements. using appropriate mechanisms, monitor them as best we can. we do this in conjunction with

our state and local counterparts. the american people should feel secure in what it is that we do. now, one has to understand that it is very difficult to maintain a good contact, to stay in touch with all the people who are potentially going to do these kinds of things. that's the thing that keeps me up most at night, this concern about the lone wolf, who goes undetected. but we are doing, as i said, the best that we can, marshaling resources we have. >> a year ago we were having a debate about privacy in this country. western europe was very upset with some of the surveillance tactics that they thought the united states was using in order to deal with terrorism in order to track potential terrorists. there has been announcements made that reforms, some sort of

rolling back of this aggressive surveillance. any second thoughts about rolling back the aggressive surveillance that the united states was doing over say the first eight, ten years after 9/11? >> i think what we looked at was changing the way in which we conduct some of our electronic surveillance programs so that we are focusing on -- focusing that effort on the people we are most concerned about. we're not going to do anything that -- you would term a rollback that would endanger the american people. we have talked to people in the intelligence community. we have talked to people in our congress. i think we have come up with a way in which we can enhance the privacy concerns that people have expressed while at the same time making sure that we keep the american people safe. >> i got to ask you one last question on another topic. david petraeus has been under investigation for possibly sharing classified secrets with his mistress. there was a leak that prosecutors have recommended that this go to trial and that you, mr. attorney general, are the final arbiter, the final decision maker. are you going to make this decision before you leave office? >> i don't want to comment on what is an ongoing matter. i think that anybody who shared information that led to that

report did so inappropriately. the determination has yet to be made. we will just see how things play out before any final decision is made. >> but you are going to make this decision? not your successor? >> well, again, i don't want to comment on an ongoing investigation and say where we stand with regard to any matter. this will be something that will have to be decided by the appropriate people in the justice department. >> all right. i will see that as a bit of a duck there, mr. attorney

general. thanks for coming on "meet the press." >> thanks. let's get reaction from the panel. david, andrea, rich and helene. andrea, if this attack happened in the united states and there was evidence that the united states intelligence agency had identified these two brothers and all three as potential threats, had gotten training in yemen, we would call this an intelligence breakdown. this is not a lone wolf. four days ago we were talking lone wolf. this is bigger. >> it is bigger. it's an intelligence failure. u.s. officials are privately saying that it was a french intelligence failure. look at the boston marathon. there was tracking and there were gaps. boston and america came together and we didn't go through a whole who messed up in boston. i think france similarly has to learn lessons from this because clearly they are not equipped. the lesson here is also that they don't have the manpower, the intelligence services. very few countries do to keep track of all of these individuals, especially in europe where they can go back and forth from syria, from the civil war, back to the continent. >> is this a bigger problem for france than the united states? >> i think absolutely it is because they are far more -- they have a far bigger muslim population in france than the

united states. that population hasn't been assimilated. france has had problems with how immigrants to france have sort of conducted -- have been treated as part of french society. the whole -- this immigrant population that rings paris in the suburbs. they are not really part of french culture. you have the laws that have been passed in france restricting wearing burkas. it's so different from the way the united states is. we are a melting pot here in the united states. there is -- my family moved to the u.s., you know, 20 years ago and there's a reason why we chose to come to the united states instead of moving to europe. one reason, we thought we would be treated better. >> david brooks, 17 people are dead in paris, 2,000 nigerias in the name of islamic radicalism were killed this week.

boko haram in nigeria. it's a worldwide -- what is this? >> failed states. say you are in college or want to give money, we give money to clean water, all that anti-poverty stuff. the central program is law and order. you can't get rich if you are afraid of getting shot in the back of the head at night. if you are giving as an individual, if you are thinking as a state, giving to law and order groups, that is the basis to get an anti-poverty program. bono is doing great stuff with diseases, law and order comes first. >> this is -- rich lowery, what should the policy be? >> it highlights the importance of surveillance. these guys fell through the cracks in france because there are too many targets to follow in france. but this is a reason we have things like the nsa program. there's also this attack highlights the domestic security consequences of having the greater middle east in flames. you have extremists with space to occupy and train people. there's the radicalizing affect

of this mayhem and sectarian warfare. >> if we're not there, it radicalizes people. there is this catch 22. >> the fact is that we have as a global society basically ignored the fact that syria has been in civil war, hundreds of thousands of people dying for four years. this is radicalizing the conflict between israel and the palestinians, but bring back our girls. the corruption in the nigerian military was so dismaying that the u.s. government pulled back from its coverage and help to try to find the girls. boko haram is marauding throughout chad and nigeria undeterred. >> the most violent of these islamic radical-based groups. we will put a pause here. we will talk more on this topic. don't go anywhere. a journalist who five years ago was working on a story about the under wear bomber when he met and interviewed said kouachi.

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ends soon. ♪ mattress discounters ♪ pictures of the millions strong rally in paris. we have learned said and cherif kouachi spent time in yemen. prior to carrying out this week's attacks. a journalist met said kouachi in the capital of yemen in january of 2010 while working on an

article about the underwear bomber, you recollect mar mar mar mar farouk abdulmuta will recollect lab. earlier this morning, i spoke to him via skype from yemen and he talked about finding said kouachi during his investigation of life for the underwear bomber in yemen. >> while we were walking on the street trying to get to the residents where he used to live, we found a guy, a foreigner guy playing football with some kids on the street. and we approached him trying to talk to him, because we knew that he was a student. and we expected that he might know something.

i make sure after i looked at the pictures and found out that the picture that was released by the french police was for said, the one that i recognize. so he talked to us. he was very polite. we asked him if he was studying at that school, and he said he was studying at that school and he was doing arabic grammar course. then we started asking him questions about umar farouk and he said he lived with him in the same residence. >> when you saw and when you talked with said kouachi, did you get the sense then this was a terrorist in training? >> he was very, very normal and

he talked to us normally. actually, we didn't -- i got shocked when i saw his photo on the press saying that this guy was the one that attacked the french newspaper. up next, what makes the u.s. different? why we think home grown islamic terrorism seems to be less of a threat here at home. bottles of water every year. that's enough plastic bottles to stretch around the earth 230 times. each brita filter can replace 300 of those. clean. clear. brita water. nothing is better. do you have something for pain? i have bayer aspirin. i'm not having a heart attack, it's my back. i mean bayer back & body. it works great for pain. bayer back & body provides effective relief for your tough pain. better? yeah...thanks for the tip!

♪ as we have been discussing, france is still reeling from this week's atrocities.

attacks carried out by those born and raised in france. why is there less of a problem in the american muslim community? muslims make up a third of the population in dearborn, michigan. >> reporter: men who are young, disadvantaged are ripe for exploitation by militant recruiters and radicals. do similar conditions exist here in the u.s.? >> an extremist in paris, we don't accept it. >> reporter: no say some of america's muslim leaders and activists. >> i think america is generally a more accepting country of newer immigrants. that's what this country was

built on. >> reporter: we travelled to dearborn, michigan, where must immigrants are arriving. >> some of them don't speak english yet. so they come to the mosque. if we can't give the service that they need, we have contacts to make those services available to them. >> reporter: 65% of the muslims in europe say they identify with their faith before the national identity. in the u.s., it's considerably less at about 45%. >> we believe that you can be fully american and fully muslim and practice your faith freely without restriction.

>> reporter: this man say lawyer and activist in the local muslim community. >> the person who emigrated here 20 years ago named mohammed, their grandson is now mike. i see an assimilation on a lot of different levels. >> reporter: for some radicalization and attacks against the u.s. stems from anger at american foreign policies and wars in the middle east. while the overwhelming majority of muslims have successfully assimilated into u.s. society, the challenge is to find some on the fringes of the communities and are alienated. >> we will be able to inoculate them. whether it's the internet or television, the phobia that has been going on for the last several years has been -- has hurt. it has really hurt. >> reporter: that's because with every attack carried out around the world, it's the muslim community that feels the blowback. for "meet the press," ayman mohyeldin. >> i'm joined by a professor at uc riverside. senior editor of the "islamic monthly." and the panel.

should we be looking at this as we heard the french prime minister say, they are at war with radical islam. does the muslim community need to -- are we at war with a strain of islam, or is this a perversion that we pretend doesn't exist? >> there's no question that there has been a kind of virus that has spread throughout the muslim world, a virus of ultra orthodox puritanism. but there's no question about what the source of this virus is, whether we're talking about boko haram or isis or al qaeda or the taliban, all of these have as their source a single sect. wahabism, the state religion of saud araub i can'tment arabia. as most people know, saudi arabia spent approximately $100 billion over the last 20, 30 years spreading this ideology throughout the world. so we do have a problem within the muslim community, but that

problem tends to be very much localized within a particular ideology that must be confronted first and foremost by muslims themselves. >> i was going to say, we have had this conversation previously on this show not long ago. i want to get you to react to something you were going to be appearing with ali, but i want to read a part of her op ed thursday. she was a former muslim. she writes this. if we take the position that we are dealing with murderous thugs with no connection to what they claim then we are not answering them. we have to acknowledge that today's islam is are driven by political ideology embedded in the foundational texts of islam. we can no longer pretend it is possible to divorce actions from the ideals that inspire them. what would you say to her? >> i would is a that she's being too reduck tif in her reasoning. it's important to keep in mind when you are dealing with second largest religion in the world with 1.7 billion people, there's no minority demographic group in

western society that is placed with more guilt than muslims. it's important we don't have a double standard in terms of calling out terrorism. terrorism today has been co-opted to only apply when brown muslim men commits acts of mass murder and when white christian people kill 77 teenagers and try to bomb the prime minister of norway's office, we didn't ask the christian leaders to come out and condemn this. i think it's reductive. >> you said there needs to be -- the muslim community needs to stand up. who are these folks? who is going to do it? >> every single organization, major organization muslim organization throughout the world and in the united states, every prominent individual, be it political or religious leaders, everyone has condemned, not just this attack but every

attack that occurs in the name of islam. anyone who keeps saying that we need to hear the moderate voice of islam, why aren't muslims denouncing these violent attacks doesn't own google. but that said, i do think that we do need to do a better job of providing a counter narrative. what really i think puts an obstacle in the way is opinions like ayaan's and so many others in the political and media mainstream who continue to say that 1.7 billion people are responsible for the actions of these extremists. that doesn't help the fight against radicalism. the answer to islamic violence is islamic peace. the answer to islamic bigotry is islamic pluralism. so that's why i put the onus on the islamic community. i recognize the work is being done, the voice of condemnation

is deafening. if you don't hear it, you are not listening. >> i want to bring in the rest of the panel. many americans don't hear the difference. >> i think it's easy to make. obviously, not all muslims, not even a majority of muslims in any way justify this kind of radicalism. but the radicals so cite text to support their actions, they have authorities that back up their interpretations. you go to saudi arabia, you go to iran and you say negative things about mohammed, very bad things are going to happen to you. you can insult in the west catholics, baptists, quakers, no one is going to show up at your door with an automatic weapon. that's not true -- >> you are providing a transition that i want to get to. that is this idea of what should -- how should the media handle this? is mohammed up not the same satirical treatment as jesus christ is, as the pope, all of

those things? david, you wrote something that i can tell you more people e-mailed me about your column on friday than i get usually. the journalists at charlie hebdo are being celebrated as martyrs. if they had tried to publish that paper on any american campus in the last decade it wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds. they would have been accused of hate speech p and they would have been shut down. >> they are things we would not tolerate here. >> yeah. >> the reaction should be for us domestically, is, let's get offended more. let's tolerate a little offensiveness. there is a new thing on campus. microaggression, it's a minor offense against people. you have to learn to tolerate that. we have to do two things. we have to uphold standards of civility and decency. but we have to let the clowns say what the clowns do. you never do that with law. you never do it with speech. you don't disinvite speakers. you allow them to talk.

you have distinctions. some people like we are at the adult table. some people like ann coulter, charlie hebdo, the kid table. let the kiddy table have it. sometimes they say things those of us at the adult table need to hear. don't crack down on them. >> it's interesting. when it comes to satirizing mohammed, the only american organization that i have seen that has done it is "south park." i will play a clip. >> i can't be responsible for people getting hurt. especially me. >> yes. people can get hurt. that's how terrorism works. but if you give in to that, you are allowing terrorism to work. do the right thing here. >> we laugh about it. what is the right thing? does the muslim community in general need to learn more tolerance of being satirized? or is this also isolated? >> i think it's a generalization to say that muslims don't tolerate being satirized. there is such a thing as

privileged communities. it's okay and nobody really bothers you if you make fun of the christianity because 70% of the americans are christian. it's the same issue that we have with regard to black/white relations and what is and what is not proper speech when referring to various stereotypes of either group. look, the fact of the matter is that even in the most free democracies there are limitations about what you can and cannot say. in france there are limitations about what you can and cannot say about the holocaust. in india, about religious minorities. we have to stand up as individuals and make sure that we are being counted. with regard to your question, if we're talking about what muslims can do, what they can look to, i think the best person to look to is the police officer killed by the terrorists for defending the right of people to caricature rise his religion.

>> thank you both for joining the panel. we have a lot of domestic politics we're going to do. up next, states of play. wait until you see this. the states where you can smoke pot, pack heat and marry your same-sex partner, all in the same state. and some of the states where you can't do any of them. as we go to break, more scenes from the massive unity rally in paris. as you can see, world leaders, i believe up front there is prime minister -- israeli prime minister netanyahu. we'll be right back. i make a lot of purchases for my business. and i get a lot in return with ink plus from chase. like 50,000 bonus points when i spent $5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. and i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at office supply stores. with ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. travel, gift cards even cash back. and my rewards points won't expire. so you can make owning a business even more rewarding. ink from chase. so you can.

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in a state where it's allowed. this got us thinking about ho your individual rights depend on where you live. let's take a look. this is some states that allow some use of marijuana. 19 states where medical marijuana is legal and four, plus d.c., that allowed recreational marijuana. they also allow gay couples to marry. all except michigan. all but two of the state, arizona and montana, voted for president obama twice. now let's look at gun rights. look at this map. here the states in red, almost all of them, have the most lenient gun laws. more conservative position in this case. and looks almost the opposite of the past two maps, a fifth, five of 26, voted against president obama in both of the elections. let's rank the states when it comes to individual rights, which states have the greatest number of more liberal laws, which ones have more conservative ones.

these are the 15 states that we consider the most liberal. where you can have some form of marijuana legally. and abortion. again, not a surprise, that all of these states here, also in the south, went red in the past two presidential elections. finally, let's talk about the states that straddle the divide. marry anybody you want, so smoke weed and carry a weapon. guess where that is. think small and sparse areas. vermont, new mexico and alaska. libertarians, you should be moving there. in a few minutes the real reason mitt romney is talking about a possible third run at the white house.

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. it was 13 years ago today that the united states government it was 13 years ago today that the united states government decided to open a prison on the island of cuba. six years ago, almost to the day, president obama tried to make good on this campaign promise. >> we provide process whereby guantanamo will be closed no later than one year from now.

>> that's not the case. congress made it virtually impossible to move any detainees to prisons on american soil. the detainees that are there include some of the worst, there were 242 men in prison there. now 127 remain. including 59 who have been approved for training. clifford sloan and carol rosenberg who has covered this extensively, perhaps the most extensive of any journalist in the world, welcome to all of you. given what we are seeing and

what unfolded in paris, clifford, i want to start with you. one of the three now dead terrorists was somebody who got radicalized in prison. this was a regular prison, a regular jail. the big fear, obviously, that is used to slow down or prevent figuring how to empty out guantanamo is this fear that they are going to return to the fight. what do you say to this? >> one point that is very important, chuck, is that there was a very intensive review of every person at guantanamo. when you say approved for transfer, it's very important for people to understand what this means. it relates to your question. it was a year-long process. for somebody to be approved for transfer, it meant that six departments and agencies had to agree that the person can be transferred -- >> this is -- we're talking national -- >> the joint chiefs of staff, the department of justice, homeland security, state department. what that means is that you had

military, intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security, foreign policy perspectives, all six had to unanimously agree. that the person can and should be transferred. that has stood the test of time. it was an intensive review. they looked at everything about the person and the risks. the percentage of those who have subsequently engaged in wrongdoing is small. it's 6.8%. everybody wants that number to be zero. that's too much. but that means that well over 90% of those who have been transferred in this administration after going through that process, not only are not confirmed to have engaged in wrongdoing, they're not suspected. it's a very thorough process. >> there's a return to terrorism

problem. there's a vast number about which we know very little. you mentioned the paris attack. one of the terrorist that killed people in paris had been in yemen. what did the intell gens services say? we know he went to yemen. there's a hole for the two years after that. i think there's a big hole for a lot of the people that left guantanamo. if you are not willing to take people into custody, then you have to kill them. that means that you don't know anything about any of these terrorist organizations out there. that's the position we're in right now. >> i want to return this back to the issue of guantanamo. yemen is important here because of a majority of the folks left in guantanamo in this prison are yemeni. there's a concern yemen is not stable enough to return them. >> i think the blowback from the events in france from the past week is that nobody is going back to yemen. they will -- anybody who -- >> particularly when we find out one of the brothers in france trained in yemen. >> correct.

and there's been a reluctance to send the people who are cleared to find new homes to yemen. the threshold just got higher. >> this was your job, you were trying to find these folks homes. here is something the president said very recently at the end of last year. >> a certain number that are going to be hard cases. we know they have done something wrong and they are still dangerous, but it's difficult to mount the evidence in a trirl article -- traditional article 3 court. >> you can't deal with them in the court, and you can't return them. where are these people going to go? >> chuck, first of all, there are a lot who have been approved for transfer who don't present that problem. the first priority is move those who are -- who have been approved for transfer now. first step in closing guantanamo is transfer those who can be approved. then you are left with a small core. the case for doing so, it will be overwhelming. >> do you believe that guantanamo is a recruiting tool for terrorism? >> absolutely not. there are those who will seek to explain away why things happen.

you tell me if what happened in paris was because of guantanamo or because of the occupation of jerusalem. there are always excuses. >> before the president leaves office, a minimum down to 60 prisoners. >> i believe it's going to be closed by the time the president leaves office. >> do you really? >> i do. nobody should -- >> the republican congress? >> nobody should under estimate president obama's commitment of the issue. >> you watched a version of justice down there. >> the problem is, there's 127 men down there and only ten are before that version of justice. so the rest of them are captives in this thing we call the war for which there is nobody on the other side to surrender for that war to end for a mechanism for them to leave. the question becomes, what are they -- when does that war end and how long do you keep people

as captives of that in. >> has the united states government given the detainees due process of any form that is defensible? >> well, the united states government position, it defends the legality of everybody who is there in court. my own personal view is that holding men for 12, 13 years without charges, many of whom have been approved for transfer for almost half of the time of their imprisonment, is deeply inconsistent with the kind of country we want to be. >> appreciate it. we will have more of this conversation online. meet the press nbc.com. when it comes to gitmo, there's more to say. we will be back here on this show in less than a minute. the bad stuff. i'm good. that's what i like to call the meta effect. 4-in-1 multi-health metamucil now clinically proven to help you feel less hungry between meals. experience the meta effect with our new multi-health wellness line.

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it was a busy week in the world of politics. 2016 took a backseat to the events around the world. let's look at three headlines this week that made news in 2016 front. jeb bush, launching his political action committee. he released a statement and it looked like his brother's 1999 and 2000 definition of compassionate conservatism. the iowa republican party voted to preserve andrea mitchell's favorite event, the straw poll. the august winnowing effect it has had over the years. probably the most important headline of the week came from courtesy of mitt romney. mitt romney says he is considering a third run for the white house. rich lowery, romney versus bush. we had stopped saying mitt

romney's name the minute jeb bush said he was interested. what's this about? >> well, it may be that romney looks at the field, thinks they are flawed and thinks i have different flaws, so why not? he can say i ran a credible campaign and maybe against someone who doesn't have advantages it will turn out different. i think it has to be a turn the page election for republicans. who has been making the most noise? jeb bush, mike huckabee and mitt romney. these are not fresh faces. >> we just did -- observed a focus group in colorado. it was a lot of people sounding like rich, turn the page. no more clintons, no more bushes. one guy wanted a congressional resolution that said clinton and bush couldn't run.

>> the desire for something new may advantage rand paul. mitt romney's motivation -- people think in the end he won't do it. that all this talk is really antagonism against watching jeb bush getting so far out front that this is kind of -- if jeb can do this, i can do it. in the end, he will realize that there will be a reality check that third time is not a charm. >> part of this is personal. we have to remember politics is more personal than we think. jeb never liked his decision to flip. he's held it against mitt romney ever since. >> the world is governed by 4-year-olds. we are all on the nursery school play ground. >> i thought the -- i thought we were at the adult table. >> the adults look at the kids on the playground. tell what kind of conservative you are by what year you want to go back to. i don't think romney is old enough. going back to peter heart, as bush steps out, as romney and clinton steps out, the country is recoiling. that focus group is part of the recoil. if ever there was a super

highway for elizabeth warren and something like that, that is wide open. >> and rand paul. >> we have fun with 2016 with you. you think, it's so early. but it's interesting going to this clinton/bush thing, around the world there's a rise of pop ooh lymph. when you have a rise, it's not just here in america, it's in france, britain, it's taking place in western europe, it means it's a revolt against the establishment everywhere. that's what's taking place. that's what's going on. >> that's the case. what's funny is i was talking to a french friend of mine who is -- about what romney -- >> name dropper. >> about the romney not really an announcement announcement. are you sure you don't have a monarchy in the united states? you are telling me we're looking at an election with clinton, bush and romney? there's something about that that strikes people everywhere as just completely offbeat.

>> i think that this -- the terror incidents and the real concerns about what might happen here will change the dialogue. you are not going to have the republican field and the endless primary show. this will be a more serious election. >> speaking of 4-year-olds and not serious, but presidential politics, very important to you helene, football season is coming to an end. presidential politics has seeped in. it's a few things. we have video of chris christie, your dallas cowboys there, david. chris christie there hugging jerry jones. it was that awkward -- stuff you wish wasn't on television. >> this is covered. >> he doesn't realize how the fox cameras caught that. what was interesting is the governor of wisconsin, packers play the cowboys, chris christie is going there. he treated -- if you are dancing with owners, here is what he put up.

he tweeted this about an owner. these are the types of owners i will be looking to hug after the packers win on sunday. we know that the packers -- chris christie had to fire back with his own tweet. superimposed scott walker in his hug. what do you think? are you okay with chris christie as a cowboys fan? >> if scott walker is against owners, he will have a big fund-raising problem. >> scott walker is about the only governor that jeb bush hasn't squeezed out of this thing. >> that's right. he has this national fund-raising base because he has run so many times, including the recall where he can go around the country and raise big money. he is someone that can potentially really bridge this establishment grass-roots -- >> are you supposed to say bridge? we're talking about christie. >> sorry. he needs to practice his hugs in

the mirror to get it down more. no one will hold it against him that he's an enthusiastic fan of his team. >> chris christie had a bad week. >> he had a bad week. >> if he wants to be president. >> if he wants to be president. there's a lot of criticism back home also of all the travel -- republican governors association leader but same time, things at home are not so good. and the bridge. >> we all know that people worry about bias in the media. we just did the walker -- i have to -- full disclosure here. i am a green bay packers owner. >> me, too. >> you going to route for the cowboys and -- >> i'm split allegiance. >> there's no super box. >> they will make jerry jones be iced up there. no heat for jerry. that's all for today. we will be back next week, because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

it could be a freak explosion. >> it's a explosion. it looks like something from a war zone. >> you hear people telling them not to jump, not to jump. >> or a big day at the big top. >> it was so loud in my head. it felt like a bomb went off. >> events that happened in the blink of an eye. >> he was trying to murder us. >> situations that can force