without breaking a sweat. now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity makes moving easy. go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today. >> announcer: this is an msnbc special series. i come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict. >> there's been another mass shooting in america. somehow this has become routine. >> the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden, the leader of al qaeda. >> so i can't afford to play some of the political games that

others may. we'll do what's required to keep the american people safe. ♪ my fellow citizens, i stand here today humbled by the task before us. we'll begin to responsibly leave iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in afghanistan. >> president obama comes to office and two wars are raging. we're still heavily engaged in iraq and afghanistan and he wants to get us out. >> the deadly morning in iraq. >> president obama has clearly made afghanistan the focus of his foreign policy. >> u.s. forces have been in the fight now for more than seven years. >> how do we define victory? >> for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror

and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. you cannot outlast us and we will defeat you. >> he takes over at this remarkable moment in american history we're really on the edge. we still have the threat of international terrorism looming over us. >> fire! >> in those days 9/11 was still very fresh. the president came to office with a relentless focus on al qaeda. >> he said to me one of your most important jobs is to go after bin laden. that's critical. critical to defeat al qaeda but more importantly critical to our ability to protect the american people. >> well, we have a number of issues, mr. president. but we're going to concentrate on afghanistan. >> soon as he took office there's an initial decision

about a request for additional troops. >> part of that broader strategy on terrorism was to make sure in afghanistan you didn't have a safe haven for terrorism. and the question about a surge was difficult because there are a lot of people who just wanted to wash our hands of it and move on. >> i could see him absorbing all of this information that is coming at him in those first few months as president and then wanting essentially to tell the world what kind of president he was going to be. >> barack obama was this magnificently charismatic one-term freshman senator who had kind of catapulted into the biggest job, being the president of a superpower, and he had not had in his background any expertise behind a high i.q. in foreign policy. the world of geopolitics is not generally for amateurs. but there's always been this american thing, we like to try to morally load our foreign policy. and i think barack obama resonated with that a bit. >> given the wars we were fighting, there was certainly a

backlash against people of the muslim faith. the president i think felt compelled that that had to be addressed. and he went to a muslim country to make that argument. >> i've come here to cairo to seek a new beginning between the united states and muslims around the world. >> he was going to make a speech to the muslim world that he would be able to bridge divides, that literally nobody in the world has been able to bridge. >> no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust. but i am convinced there must be a sustained effort to listen to each other. to learn from each other. to respect one another. >> muslims saw obama making an overture. they probably had some expectations about how american policy would change. it created higher expectations that would be much harder to fulfill. >> good morning.

well, this is not how i expected to wake up this morning. >> one day president obama's woken up by his press secretary robert gibbs who calls him and says sir, you just won the nobel peace prize. >> conservatives are condemning the nobel committee and the president. the most common reaction seems to have been didn't he just get the job? >> i was horrified. i think he was horrified. all of us that worked with him were just like, oh, god. which i grant is a strange and perhaps seemingly ungrateful reaction. but we had a set of difficult policy issues that we needed to move forward and it just seemed a distraction. >> after i received the news

malia walked in and said, "daddy, you won the nobel peace prize and it is beau's birthday." it's good to have kids to keep things in perspective. i am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the nobel committee. >> a few hours before the plane was going to take off for oslo he gives us must have been about ten pages of this peace prize address. he was wrestling with these momentous questions of war and peace. >> he's winning the nobel peace prize and he's sending more american troops into war in afghanistan. so it's an awkward contrast. >> now mr. president, the floor is yours. [ applause ] >> i would be remiss if i did not acknowledge the considerable

controversy that your generous decision has generated. perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that i am the commander in chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. and so i come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict, filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace and our effort to replace one with the other. >> when you're commander in chief and you're charged with keeping the american people safe and you read what terrorist networks are planning to do to your embassies or to your airports or to your family members, that fundamentally doesn't allow the president of the united states even one that's drawn to the ideas of king and gandhi as barack obama, doesn't allow him to be a pacifist. >> i face the world as it is and cannot stand idle in the face of

threats to the american people. >> president obama comes in, and he has to deal with all of these sort of conflicting things that are happening. >> we're fighting the violence overseas in two wars, but then there's gunfire at home. the contrast was unmistakable. >> here in chicago gun violence is an epidemic. >> my best friend -- >> dramatic events in upstate new york. >> he killed at least a dozen people. >> a shooting in texas. the president of the united states was briefed early on. >> it's difficult enough when we lose these brave americans in battles overseas. it is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on american soil. >> one of the reasons that he was so relatable as president is that he reacted to those shootings the same way we all did, with absolute horror. >> hi.

this is your congresswoman gabrielle giffords inviting you to a one-on-one meeting. i am hosting congress on your corner this saturday at the safeway located at 7th -- >> we are being told that arizona democratic congresswoman gabrielle giffords has been shot -- >> held the gun about a foot from her head and began firing -- >> the congresswoman, she's still alive -- >> six others have been killed. >> the dead include a little girl who came here excited to meet her congresswoman. >> president obama will head to arizona to speak at a memorial service to support and remember the victims of the shooting. >> on saturday morning gaby, her staff, and many of her constituents gathered outside to exercise their right to peaceful assembly and free speech. that was the scene that was shattered by a gunman's bullets. >> a sitting congresswoman was shot in the head at an event she was holding for her constituents. i mean, it was an attack on

democracy too. >> the president's first stop, the hospital here, where he visited with victims and their families including the congresswoman and her husband. >> a few minutes after we left gaby opened her eyes for the first time. [ cheers and applause ] gaby opened her eyes for the first time. we should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of such violence in the future. >> one of the people who died in tucson was christina taylor green who was this 9-year-old girl. one of our junior speech writers found this book called "faces of hope." it was about 50 children who were born on 9/11. and christina taylor green, as fate would have it, is one of those children. she was given to us on a day of violence and taken from us in an act of violence. >> if there are rain puddles in heaven, christina's jumping in them today. >> but he also wanted us to remember the people that aren't

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i'm a new yorker. 9/11 happens to be my pirth-dbi. i remember every moment of that day. time seemed to move slow on 9/11. and i remember being struck by the fact that on may 1st, 2011, the day we went after bin laden, time seemed to move slow as well. >> march 24, 2011. i was summoned to a meeting about the biggest secret in washington. we had a powerful circumstantial

case that either osama bin laden or some other really bad dude was hiding out in this compound in abbottabad, pakistan. >> president obama's being told by some of the smartest intelligence people in the world that they think it's maybe 50-50 this is really bin laden. >> when we were going through the whole process of the bin laden raid, there were people, including cabinet members, who were saying no, it's too early. but he knew there was a chance that you're going to find out that bin laden has left the compound. and he didn't want to take those chances anymore. >> he overruled some of his own security people, said we're going to go after this guy. if it's him, we're going to get rid of him. if it's not, i'll take all the heat. >> he gave the order that we would do the raid that weekend. for a lot of reasons including moonlight, sunday was going to be the best day for this raid.

now, the white house correspondents dinner was that saturday night. he wasn't looking forward to going. his mind is literally thousands of miles away. and then the next day he went out and played nine holes of golf, in part because he said i play golf every weekend and i just don't want people to notice i'm not playing golf. we had a secret, and if the secret got out osama bin laden would be out of that compound. >> it's one of the most important missions the cia and special forces had been involved in. and there was always the underlying fear that it could all go to hell. >> we came into the "the situation room," and i could tell he was a little anxious. the helicopters took off for the raid, and he told me later that that's what was making him nervous. it wasn't the bin laden piece of this. it was these americans on helicopters.

>> one of the helicopters was above the compound. the heat from the ground came up and stalled the engine of that helicopter. >> it clipped the side of this compound. this is the worst case scenario. >> it's like oh, my goodness, let's go to plan b. >> we'll breach the walls. we'll continue the mission. [ gunfire ] we heard the gunfire, and then there was about 20 minutes of silence. we all kind of held our breath at that point. >> and i remember obama saying, "we got him." >> there was no cheering. there was no high fives. there were a lot of exhales. sighs of relief. >> obama stands up and he just says, "i want to know when the last helicopter is out of pakistani air space." and walks out. >> i get a call from president

obama early in the morning, about 2:00 in the morning. he didn't get into a lot of detail. he said osama bin laden is dead. i didn't say a word. i just hung up the phone and went back to sleep and slept peacefully. it was good to get rid of that evil man. >> president obama made sure that people consulted with religious, cultural, social experts to identify how much of it was going to be made public to the american people, indeed to the world. he recognized that the islamic world was watching. >> he kept saying, we're not going to spike the football, we're not going to release these pictures of bin laden. >> i think the president thought that pictures of a bloodied bin laden would send the wrong message about what the united states was all about. >> tonight i can report to the american people and to the world

that the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden, the leader of al qaeda. >> for a country that had lost a lot of confidence after the iraq war and the financial crisis, he wanted to make this point that americans should feel good about this, it shows that we can do big things. [ crowd chanting "usa" ] >> when i went out the west wing doors and could hear the chants of "usa, usa" and "cia, cia" lafayette park was just teeming with people. >> a lot of these college kids who had been children when 9/11 happened, their entire lives had been framed around this attack, and for bin laden to have finally been caught and killed was this catharsis moment for our country. >> his death does not mark the end of our effort. we must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad. >> he saw it as a completion of

something. but he shared the fears about, well, what's going to come next? ♪ >> the middle east has simply never seen anything like this before. >> u.s. trying to respond to the dizzying pace of change in the region. not an easy adjustment. >> the young arab men and women have found their voice. the arab street has found its voice. and it's a democratic voice. >> we have witnessed an extraordinary change taking place in the middle east and north africa. the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. >> president obama's heart was with the arab spring. and then the question is how do you act on that? >> two leaders have stepped aside. more may follow. >> and so he's sort of dealing with all these contradictions of war making and peace making. and remember, he was awarded the democratic nomination in large part because of his opposition to the iraq war. >> as president i want us to fight on the right battlefield.

and what that means is getting out of iraq. >> president obama's agenda was end the war in iraq to come up with an end game. >> good afternoon, everybody. >> on the campaign we'd been so many speeches about ending the war in iraq. and now he was actually doing it. >> over the next two months our troops in iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. >> so everybody's getting all excited about this. appropriately, it's the american value of democracy. we fought a war in iraq for it. and now the obama administration too is getting excited. but when you have more freedom, you inherently have a little less stability. i don't think anybody really did the kind of in-depth planning that needed to be done in order to support these different countries. and in the wake of that

obviously chaos developed. and so there was a hesitancy about how much should the united states be involved here. any one of these countries could drag us into another middle eastern war. eastern war. just like your fingertips,

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they were distractions for him at a time when he domestically needed to deal with a lot of stuff. >> america has a proud history of strong, confident, principled global leadership. not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events. unfortunately, that's exactly

where we find ourselves in the middle east under president obama. >> the fact that he was able to prevail handily in 2012 is a remarkable political feat. think about the first debate with romney, how bad it was. >> that's what we've done, made some adjustments to it and put it before congress right now -- >> but you've been president for four years. you said you'd cut the deficit in half. it's now four years later. if you're re-elected you'll get to a trillion-dollar debt. >> he understood he screwed it up. romney was able to in front of a watching nation on real live television break through the persona the obama campaign had created for him, and obama was on the ropes. >> we had a little debate earlier this week, and i enjoyed myself. >> and so next thing you know, with maniacal determination reminiscent of when he first ran, obama was ready. >> the american auto industry is back on top. home values are on the rise. because of the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform the war in iraq is over. al qaeda's on the run. osama bin laden is dead.

we've made progress these last four years. >> and in the end president obama was able to recapture and re-energize the diverse coalition that put him into office the first time. and turn them out. >> president obama has won the state of ohio. president obama has been re-elected for a second term. >> we have picked ourselves up. we have fought our way back. and we know in our hearts that for the united states of america the best is yet to come. >> it was just such a relief to know that the american people were still behind us and that we had strong legs ready for that second run. >> this was the holidays of

2012. we had just won re-election. so we were feeling pretty good about that. we were beginning to talk about his inaugural address. obama was offering his thoughts about what he wanted us to focus on. and john brennan came in and interrupted us. >> he said what's up? and i said there were a number of children who were killed. it took the wind right out of him. >> we are in the middle of what is an unfolding and a horrifying situation. >> a horrifying scene unfolding in connecticut at an elementary school. >> 26 dead. the second deadliest school shooting in american history. >> he just continued to lean against the back of the sofa and he was sort of like staring off. >> it's the only time he actually asked to see mrs. obama during the middle of the day. she tells the story in her book. >> my husband needed me.

this would be the only time in eight years that he'd request my presence in the middle of a workday. when i walked into the oval office, barack and i embraced silently. there was nothing to say. no words. >> and i know he always looked at these incidents through the eyes of a father. as a husband, as a family man. >> so i quickly drafted a statement for the president to give. he just kind of, you know, put his head in his hands and crossed out one paragraph. that mentioned his own daughters. he said that's too raw, i'm not going to be able to get through that. then he gave the statement and he couldn't get through the statement anyway. >> the majority of those who died today were children. beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. >> we don't have a lot of

examples of presidents who weep. the whole building was sort of holding our breath and watching. >> this evening michelle and i will do what i know every parent in america will do. hug our children a little tighter. and we'll tell them that we love them. but there are families in connecticut who cannot do that tonight. and they need all of us right now. >> i don't know how you recover. how do you recover from something as horrible as this? how do you live with that? excuse me. i mean, these are 20 people a week before christmas that just lost their joy. >> there was no way to explain what had happened. so the only thing that you could do was go and pay your respects to the parents. >> as we're getting off the plane i remember president obama

saying, i want the names of every single child and adult because they -- because their family deserves to hear that. >> we can't accept events like this as routine. are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage? that the politics are too hard? >> the siblings of the victims, some were so young they had no idea what had happened. but they knew who barack obama was. so there's a photo that i think hung in the west wing of president obama smiling through tears as he took a picture with all the siblings. if people think having a consoler in chief doesn't matter, they are wrong. >> charlotte. daniel. olivia.

josephine. anna. dylan. madeline. katherine. chase. jesse. james. grace. emily. jack. noah. caroline. jessica. benjamin. evelyn. allison. ♪ ♪

narrator: upgrade your protectin this holiday season...

i'm richard lui with your hour's top stories. tonight the pennsylvania supreme court rejected another gop election challenge. the lawsuit claimed a 2019 law allowing no excuse mail-in voting violated the state's constitution. the court dismissed the motion with prejudice. and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell will temporarily suspend in-person lunches for his conference, an aide tells nbc. the daily lunches have been taking place in socially distanced rooms since may while democrats have been meeting by phone. now back to "obama."

the fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing. i urge the new congress to hold votes on these measures in a timely manner. >> suddenly he's decided the beginning of the second term is going to be about gun control. he's going to stop what happened in sandy hook from happening again. >> overwhelming majorities of americans have come together around common sense reform. like background checks. >> he certainly knew that there was a danger that the republicans would not play nice. i think he was surprised at how brutal it became. >> universal background checks had overwhelming support. >> across the country in virtually every red state it had majority support. >> in my view such background checks are not overly burdensome or unconstitutional. >> there were some in the republican party who were

willing to deal with him. and every time they would get just a little bit closer others in the party would speak out. >> i believe the underlying bill infringes on the second amendment -- >> the senate should focus on making sure current laws are enforced -- >> having a security officer in the school that can confront the shooter before they can get to the kids. >> the politics of changing gun laws is really, really hard because they're so dug in. you know, it was funny. people think it's all about nra money. it's not really about money. it's about voters. voters don't want more second amendment reductions. >> the senate is set to vote today on the hotly contested issue of background checks. >> just hours to go, and it appears they are close but a few votes short of the 60 that are needed. >> the question is on the amendment. the clerk will call the roll. >> they were all hands on deck trying to count votes. and we came close. we came close. >> within the last half hour the u.s. senate has voted down the compromise deal on expanded

background checks. >> if you thought anything would be done, it would be after little kindergartners and first graders are murdered in their school. but even that couldn't get congress to act. >> so all in all this was a pretty shameful day for washington. >> but never once did he define the republican obstructionists in terms of how it made him feel. he defined it in terms of what the consequences would be for the american people. >> there he is in the beginning of his second term and the very first thing he takes on ends up being a failure. and it's a testament to the fraught politics of guns. but it really is a damaging thing for a president to come out of a re-election and not to succeed. >> the mantle of the commander in chief is a heavy burdensome mantle. it's a lot easier when you are a candidate to be able to say i will do the following, i can fix this or fix that, as every president has found out. >> yeah, it's hard to be

president. he's getting nowhere legislatively. he has challenges stacking up overseas. >> the arab spring is quickly turning into arab summer. >> i think we didn't anticipate in the beginning the dark side of the arab spring. the biggest, most catastrophic world historical down side was in syria. >> today there were more demonstrations in syria. at least 30 people were killed when syrian security forces opened fire. >> the crackdown became more violent. there was support from foreign powers, russia and iran, for that crackdown. so it very quickly became an incredibly complicated civil war. >> for the first time today president obama explicitly called for president assad to step aside. >> president obama wasn't going to get us embroiled in endless foreign conflicts, and there was

a real fear for him at that time that his whole second term could become engulfed. >> the decision as to whether or not to intervene militarily for a humanitarian purpose is always one of the most complex decisions that a president or an administration needs to make. there's no easy black and white answer. there's no cookie cutter approach to it. >> i appreciate the question. and these incidents remain deeply concerning to us. >> hello, everybody. >> looks like there's a surprise guest here. >> jay tells me that you guys have been missing me. >> i think he ostensibly wanted to come out and talk about the economy. there had been some report he could loosely claim he wanted to tout. i'll take a few questions. >> update us on your latest thinking on where you think things are in syria and in particular whether you envision using u.s. military if simply for nothing else than keeping out the chemical weapons.

>> so i asked him this question and he clearly was waiting for an opportunity to talk about this a little bit. >> i have indicated repeatedly that president al assad has lost legitimacy, that he needs to step down. >> and at that point in time syria was certainly a serious issue but it hadn't percolated into the front pages yet. >> a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. that would change my equation. >> it's somehow under -- it's safe? >> in a situation this -- >> it's in that back and forth, and i push him again, so then -- and he draws the red line. >> that's a red line for us. and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons. all right? thank you, everybody. >> the president gave his most definitive statement about what it would take for him to order u.s. military action in syria.

>> allahu akbar. >> but i don't know whether president obama understood just how determined bashar al assad was to slaughter as many fellow syrians as he had to in order to retain power. really? i didn't-- aah! ok. i'm on vibrate. aaah! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪ birds flyin' high you know how i feel ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel ♪ [man: coughing] ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day... ♪ no matter how you got copd it's time to make a stand. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups.

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the syrian regime may have used chemical weapons against its own people. >> barack obama was not an isolationist. what i think he was was somewhat idealistic about what diplomacy could do when it wasn't backed by military force. i don't think he had an appreciation for evil from the world. >> the president's red line in syria now definitively crossed. >> it is both awful on its face and it is something the president said would be treated as a red line. >> the day that the chemical weapons attack takes place, obama had a meeting with his

national security team and left us with every impression, prepare the targets, deploy the military. >> when the images surfaced of 1,400 people killed, his response was immediate, we're going to strike. that was barack obama's immediate response. but a set of circumstances changed his calculus. >> it is clear to me that the british parliament, reflecting the views of the british people, does not want to see british military action. i get that, and the government will act accordingly. >> the british parliament voted to prevent the uk from joining us in any strikes in syria. the german chancellor angela merkel says i won't even say politically that i support this until there's a u.n. investigation at the u.n. security council. what was happening was the ghost of the iraq war was in the room. he didn't see any option that he knew would work. what he saw is a slippery slope where we would have to remove

assad ourselves. and again, he saw a country that he was the leader of that was just not going to support that after iraq, after afghanistan. >> the president of the united states, if you draw a red line it has to be unquestionable that you're going to enforce it. and he didn't. >> the entire region is bordering on chaos, and we must change the battlefield equation. >> the obama administration has waited too long. >> action by the united states and the international community is required. >> it used to be that congress declared war. that's the way it is in the constitution. and so you have in this president who's also a constitutional lawyer the sense that if there is this great public desire to mete out retribution against bashar al assad for what he had done to his own people it needs to not just be coming from the president of the united states, it needs to come from the country. >> good afternoon, everybody. >> he decided to go to congress to seek congressional authority. >> yet while i believe i have

the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization, i know that the country will be stronger if we take this course and our actions will be even more effective. >> i wish i had jumped up and down and said congress is not going to happen. >> thanks very much. >> will you forgo a strike if congress disapproves? >> this wasn't a case where people of sound minds would come together. people were going to look at this in a very political way. >> i have never supported the use of military force, of u.s. military force in this conflict, and i still don't. >> we worked very hard to get that congressional support but it didn't materialize in large part because some of the same republicans who had criticized us for not going to war in syria announced they wouldn't vote to authorize it. >> have you made up your mind? is a strike needed in order to preserve your credibility for when you set the sort of red lines? >> first of all, i didn't set a red line. the world set a red line. >> you know, perception is reality in foreign policy.

and the perception was he drew a red line. but here's bashar al-assad killing tens of thousands of his own citizens using barrel bombs, using attacks from the sky. and when he then used chemical weapons to kill a relatively small number of people, the cry was tremendous. where were the people worried about the tens of thousands of syrians who were dying through conventional weapons? >> it was clear to me the president regretted ever using the phrase "red line." you draw a red line on a foreign policy issue, you have to humiliate yourself to get out of it in some form or another. >> we went to russia for a g20 in early september, and he meets with putin and proposes that we work together to just remove these chemical weapons from syria. and that leads to this diplomatic agreement. >> the russian government has indicated a willingness to join

with the international community in pushing assad to give up his chemical weapons. i have therefore asked the leaders of congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path. the use of for while we pursue this diplomatic path. >> one thing russians don't want to see is us use force in syria so the russians helped to pressure the syrians to give up their chemical weapons program. >> i think he would like to argue, hey, i found a way to avoid a military option. the problem is how naive that looks and that he cut a deal with the russians who at the point in time were getting trod do the largest infill iteration into american democracy than ever attempted. >> your critics say you're reluctance to enter another middle east were makes the united states weaker. >> you had millions of refugees,

hundreds and thousands of death, you had a country which will never be able to repair itself. >> president was way too focused on exit strategies. you still had all of the problems in the middle east. it's never ending. >> sometimes you just can't thread the needle. >> on the other hand it's the president's job to make tough decisions in our interest, in this instant i think he did. >> every few months i go to walter reid and see say 25-year-old kid who is paralyzed or lost his limbs and some of those are people i ordered into basket battle. i can't afford to play some of the political games others make. we'll do what is required to keep the american people safe. folks want to pop off and have opinion s about what they think they would do

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our brave men and women in uniform tempered by the flames of battle are unmatched in skill and perch, the knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm. ♪ >> for any president of the united states probably the most painful aspect is that you do in a lot of ways preside over death. you welcome home the bodies of our dead troops. you're hugging the widows and the children of people who died in terrorist attacks or mass

shootings. >> breaking news right now, authorities in lafayette, louisiana, telling nbc news there's been a shooting. >> there was a shooting at the theater in louisiana and happened to occur whether turne down my head, started taxing until we took off again. this is an illustration that the white house response to a mass shooting incident we could literally do in our sleep. >> he has come out to this podium before but he has had no success in getting what he calls common sense gun legislation passed. >> there's been another mass shooting in america. somehow this has become routine. >> it seemed to happen over and over and over and over again. i remember him saying, after background checks failed in 2013

what do i do the next time i have to go speak at one of these things. >> the reporting is routine. my response here at this podium we've become numb to this. >> he was saying, god i feel like i'm routine, and your coverage seems routine. it got us all going wait a minute why are we letting this feel routine? >> i hope and pray that i don't have to come out again, but based on my experience as president i can't guarantee that. and that's terrible to say. ♪ and it can change. hange. . >> he recognized that even as president, the most powerful person in the world, his ability to prevent these things from happening is limited.

>> this act of evil -- >> whenever there was a public memorial, the president and first lady would spend time with each family and sadly it became a routine that our staff knew how to organize. it's a horrible thing to know how to organize. >> for president and mrs. obama that might be the 300th hand they shake that day. but for that person it's their moment with the president and the first lady. to sit with their families, to absorb their pain. >> it was the most remarkable thing i've seen two people do and it takes a toll. even years after, whenever he would speak about sandy hook never did it without choking up. >> those rights were stripped from first graders. first graders. ♪ and from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives from a bullet from a gun.

>> well, the great presidents do understand that you can often bring change in the moment for several years as president but you have to begin, you have to start. as the president entered the fourth quarter he felt like he was as gf a president as he was going to be. even though he made mistakes and felt like he'd been there long enough, we felt nothing could stop us. >> for all we endured and all of the grit and hard work required to come back. for all of the tasks thatli lie ahead, know this, the shadow of crisis has passed and the state of the union is strong. >> we have leadership in this country they don't know what the hell they're doing. >> people kept trying to demoralize him. he never let any of that get to

him. >> the progress is made under president obama is impossible to erase. >> that's what we did. that's what you did. this is an msnbc special series. ♪ >> as president entering the fourth quarter, there's a plan this country has to put in place for our future. for it's time for us to take care of business. yes, we can. yes, we can. yes, we can. they're just fanning resentment and blame and anger and hate, and that is not the america we know, that's not the america i know.