this sunday, what now in afghanistan? it's election year, and a new debate erupted over when to withdrawal u.s. forces for what has become the longest war in u.s. history. >> we're going to complete this mission and we're going to do it responsibly. >> my guest this morning, john mccain, who will weigh in on the latest twist in the gop race. can romney out last his rivals as another test looms in illinois? and then a roundtable discussion as we learn more about the soldier behind the massacre of civilians. what are they going through? with us, afghanistan war veteran, wes moore. paul rieckhoff, founder and director of iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. author of "where men win glory,"

about the death of pat tillman, jon krakauer. from the "washington post," bob woodward, and from the "new york times" helene cooper. and finally, my conversation with george clooney to stop ethnic cleansing in sudan. nbc-universal television good morning, puerto rico, universal television good morning. good morning, puerto rico, 48 hours to go until the big stakes illinois primary, 54 delegates on the line there. >> we're going to show on tuesday the conservative movement in illinois is alive and well on election night on tuesday. >> after a pair of third place finishes in alabama and mississippi, mitt romney is fighting hard for a rebound in illinois trying to cement his delegate lead.

he stands at 423, and santorum at 184. and here to talk about the fight here at home and abroad, arizona senator, john mccain. senator, welcome back. >> thank you, david. >> i want to talk about afghanistan, but i want to start with politics. where we are in this race, rick santorum was interviewed on the "today" program this week, and he made a strong point. watch it. >> if you can't with an overwhelming money advantage deliver a knockout blow to other candidates. >> the top got clipped off. he said how is romney going to be a candidate if he can't take care of these other guys? how do we get to a point where the guy seemed to be the favorite for the nomination can't eliminate weaker opponents? >> well, mitt romney will tell you he has to do a better job and he has to focus on the

economy and he has been giving speeches on the economy and jobs, and i think he is improving dramatically as a candidate, and also the proportional distribution of the delegates. if it was winner take all, you would have seen those numbers significantly different. and also super pacs have played a role, unfortunately in my view, and they had made it more difficult to win the election in november. >> you have been in nasty fights yourself politically, but do you -- >> this is the nastiest i have ever seen. again, when you have las vegas casino mogul, who gets part of his money from a cow pouring $20 million into a campaign, and most of those are negative ads, obviously that drives up

people's unfavorable. it's a result the worst decision the united states supreme court made, where the majority of the supreme court just unloosened -- released all money now. there will be scandals, david. there will be scandals and then maybe reform again. >> let's talk about newt gingrich. he looks like he is fading and he says i am in this all the way, and tag teaming, and what do you do about that? >> again, because of the super pacs, and the ability to use money, stay in as long as he has bus fare. and i'm not telling him to get out. i think it's clear that his chances of succeeding and getting the nomination are slim, and so the beat goes on. >> how about the prospect of a contested or brokered convention? >> i don't think it's going to

happen. i think mitt will win in illinois on tuesday, and i think we have every chance of that. i think it's going to be okay, but in my view it's gone way too long and it's gotten way too personal and attacks on character, and all of that, it has been very unfortunate. again, who has benefited from it? president obama. >> let's talk about president obama. the battleground is going to be the economy. that's the message governor romney will bring already to president obama, and vice president biden on to the trail, and this is what he said speaking this week. >> it's not just the automobile industry coming back, folks. manufacturing is coming back. the middle class is coming back. america is coming back! >> now, even -- >> nice tan. >> he did looked tan, didn't he.

governor romney said the economy is recovering, and improving. you know going up obama he had a better economic message and connected better on the economy, and how does romney take on the president and say, no, really we could have recovered faster. is that the message he could take to voters. >> well, facts are stubborn things. when we passed the stimulus package -- by the way, we have gone from $10 trillion to $15 trillion in vet, thanks to the view that the president of the united states creates jobs, and given to a mature industry, and that's crazy, because it's got to do with his philosophy, which is that government creates jobs. mitt romney believes that business creates jobs. he has had that background and he backed businesses that succeeded and he backed businesses that failed.

$5 million in a warehouse and now you have staples. that's what this campaign will be all about. if joe biden and the president are happy with 8.3% unemployment, run on that. we will be glad to see you run on that. >> are you concerned at all to see a focus, certain elements of the republican party on social issues and in the own state of arizona there's a contraception bill where it would put women in an uncomfortable position? >> i am confident, that would not reach the governor's desk and if it did, it would be vetoed. it doesn't reflect in my view the majority view of the people in arizona. >> do you think there's a war on woman among republicans? >> i think we have to fix that. i think there's a perception because of the way the whole contraception played out, and we need to get out of that issue, and we need to respect the right of women to make choices in their lives, and get back to

what people care about, jobs and the economy. and we will talk about the long involvement and long and difficult struggle in afghanistan. >> that's where i wanted to go next. we're learning more about the staff sergeant that committed a massacre of civilians in afghanistan. multiple tours. as we learn more about him, father of two and was having financial problems, and was behind on his mortgage and was disappointed to learn of a fourth tour between iraq and afghanistan. what are your thoughts about him and what we're learning about him? >> it's a great tragedy. can i say that i am proud of the treatment of our veterans by the american people and our government and the president of the united states and the first lady, and i am very proud of all of that.

tragedies ensue in wars, and we have seen it in every war. that's why those who have known war hate it the most. all i can say, we will continue to do everything we can to try and bring about as much treatment and care for those who have suffered the wounds of war, both visible and invisible. let me say that the irony here as far as afghanistan is concerned, general allen's plan is succeeding. we have succeeded on the ground. we made dramatic gains. the fact that karzai is acting like he is, we can go into a little more. but on a pure military tactical standpoint we are winning, but what the president keeps talking about is how quick we're going to withdrawal. put yourself in president karzai's place, and you see on the front of the "new york times" says how speedy the withdrawal is going to be. president karzai has ambitions to stay there. one of his predecessors ended up being hung from a lamp post in kabul, and so instead of saying

we're going to win this war, what president obama said in 2008, it was a war we must win. instead all we hear about is plans for withdrawal, and plans for withdrawal, and how quick the withdrawal will be. how about a commitment to victory? the american people are terribly war weary, and i understand that, but a leader needs to explain to the people why this can succeed. three times the president has gone against the recommendations of his military advisers, and the first one was of course when he announced we would have 30,000 in a surge instead of 40,000. i think what we have got to do is understand how tough this is, convince karzai that we are there to win, and we still have contractible problems such as corruption and the pakistanis. >> this is what trips me up on

the question of how we define victory? to be fair to the president, he came in here after you and others criticized the bush policy for hamstringing the effort in terms of what we had to do in afghanistan, and now he is saying we surged up, and don't we have to be more clear about what we can actual accomplish and what we cannot accomplish as we get out of afghanistan? >> i think we have to be clear eyed about what the goal is and the president keeps saying we're going to withdrawal. if he would have given the military leaders, ones he appointed, 40,000 instead of 30,000, perhaps things would be better than they are today. but i can also tell you that american presidents lead, and the same reason why the president won't lead on syria, and president clinton would lead on bosnia, and this president won't lead where people are being massacred in syria, and the president refuses to lead.

>> senator, how do you get a reset of the foreign policy in the national security policy that has some realism to it and understands the boundaries of what we can actually accomplish? isn't afghanistan a perfect example of al qaeda is not there, and you have a government likely to fall, and we fought there so long thinking we would defeat the taliban when the taliban will have to run the country in some way or form, and despite our concerns about women and girls in that country. don't you think we have to be realistic about what we can achieve and bring most of the folks back? >> first of all, the taliban has been decimated to a large degree. it's not true that they have to, quote, run the country. if there's anything good about the breakdown about negotiations with the taliban, we will not free up five hardened taliban

individuals from guantanamo who would re-enter the fight in the few of most of us, but the important thing is we succeeded on the ground, and there have been thousands of acts of kindness on the part of the american troops, and the relationship between the american troops and the afghanistan troops is remarkable, but we have succeeded on the ground in afghanistan. we have control of key parts of the country. if the president won't accelerate the withdrawal from the 68,000 and it continued to be talked about in the media, we can withdraw with a stable government in kabul, and there's one thing history shows us, that al qaeda will be back with the taliban, and that's the

place where 2001 and 9/11 began. >> don't we have to be realistic as well, kind of to your point, we are going to have some presence to make sure the government doesn't fall, perhaps for decades? >> what was lost, david, unfortunately in the tragedy of the sergeant was that we concluded half of a very important strategic partnership agreement, by the way, senator lindsay graham was a key element in and there was two sticking points. we got half of it done. we could conclude one part which would send a message to the bad guys that we are not leaving, and that's very important. i am pleased to note the administration is working very hard on that. if we can get back with karzai, i think it could change the environment to a more optimistic view. >> i left something hangingsing out there. do you agree that we have to have some presence there for perhaps as long as decades if we are really going to achieve our goals? >> we have troops in korea and

japan and germany and troops all over the world, in countries all over the world. why is it okay with the american people? because we don't have casualties there. if we have a peaceful environment and long-term relationship with afghanistan, and a peaceful afghanistan, the american people wouldn't mind that. what they mind is obviously the continuous casualties and tragedies such as we have just seen. >> why isn't it too much to push ahead with what you are talking about in syria when we are committed the way we are in afghanistan? >> the same reason the united states has intervened in other times and places, and president bill clinton at the time of bosnia said there are times and places where the leadership can mean the difference between peace and war and we can defend our fundamental values as a people and serve our strategic values. if syria went, that would be the greatest blow to iran in 25 years. but people are being slaughtered and massacred in an unfair

fight, and iranians are on the ground, and they are being massacred and there are estimates as high as 10,000, and working with other countries and no boots on the ground and no unilateral action, we could join with others and lead and bring about the end of one of the most brutal dictators on earth. >> before you go -- >> covered a lot of territory. >> this is your 64th appearance on this program. i was joking. you have been on this show more than i have over the years, and we have some of the pictures of you over the years where you have come here and you talked about politics and national security, and you have done it on this platform, which we appreciate very much. i wonder as you reflect and you think about, you have run for president and been in the senate a long time and served in the house, how do you think you have evolved in your public life? what is most important to you now? >> well, without getting into

psych session, i hope that i have become more informed and i hope i have become more tolerant and have become a person more respectful of the views of others, and especially on issues such as this, what we were just talking about, about life and death. i have been frankly privileged to be on this program as many times as i have because it's my opportunity to talk to the american people and i am grateful. >> senator, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> appreciate it as always. coming up, what now in afghanistan? what about the lasting toll war is taking on our troops? we will continue in a special edition of the roundtable next. george clooney talks about politics. keep it here. lks about politics. [ artis brown ] america is facing some tough challenges right now. two of the most important are energy security and economic growth. north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world.

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coming coming up, a special roundtable discussion on the costs of war. joining me, helene cooper, bob woodward, jon krakauer, and wes

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we're back with our roundtable. joining me white house correspondent for "the new york times," helene cooper, and from the "washington post," bob woodward, and author of "where men win glory," and an iraq war veteran, paul rieckhoff. welcome to all of you.

i wish we did not have the focus on this conversation. you have a tragedy in afghanistan with the death of afghan civilians and the tragedy of our forces, some of whom are put in a situation where the cost of war is so high, it's affecting them in the theater of war, war that goes on and on. we see the photo of robert bails, and more is being learned about him. a cowl of the headlines that have come out in the past couple of days about what may have been behind this rampage is also striking. he was a soldier strained by deployments. it was his fourth deployment between iraq and afghanistan, and this caught my eye this week about the question of what was behind this, and where military institutions are failing our soldiers.

and a retired major wrote this in the washington post. before we get too involved perhaps it might be right and proper to suggest the underlying issue is not the failure of our army. and could the issue be no institutional effort can make up trying over the past ten years to fight too many wars with too few soldiers. paul rieckhoff, regular people that i spoke to said after this, we have to get out of there. >> let's break that apart. what is true is our troops are being asked to do an unprecedented amount of work. nobody has been asked to do so much for so long. less than one-half of the 1% of the american public. we don't know about a lot of the facts. the facts continue to unfold. our troops are under tremendous strain but there's not a connection with traumatic brain injury and murderous rampages like this. the troops are honorable and

courageous, and we have to make sure we don't let this man represent so many that have done so much for the country and while most folks have not been paying attention. this is what it took for the country to have this conversation, about the inequality of what we're asking these folks to do. then that's a good thing. coincidence doesn't necessarily equal causeality here. >> well, let's talk about it from the other side, here, from the afghan side here, which is the scale of this tragedy. we were talking about last night with some folks you have been in touch with, about our efforts there? >> we don't understand why the afghans are so upset about accidentally burning korans, and talking to an afghan friend, he was saying you don't know what it's like -- it's not just this, but you spent ten years of death, and how would you feel if an afghan was in your country and killed 16 people?

and this -- this -- the whole counterinsurgency idea, you are asking the soldiers -- they are trained to fight and not trained to be the peace corps. you are asking them to do two things you can't reconcile. that's part of the problem. you are fighting and at the same time there's any collateral damage or casualties, the whole country will erupt and you just negated all the work you have done and that was never taken into consideration when the counterinsurgency was done. >> helene, how are we defining this? >> that's the fundamental question. senator mccain, when he was talking about being committed to victory was again talking about a counterinsurgency strategy. i think nothing -- when president obama decided to do

his hybrid, you know, i am going to do a little counterterrorism and counter insurgent sea, but the american people will never dedicate what you need to dedicate to that strategy. this came out at a point where we are eight years into this war. there was no way of the idea of winning the hearts and minds of the afghan people, the strategy could work unless we were in there for a long time. i was talking to somebody at the white house after this massacre, and they said that there's nothing more than could drive a stake into the heart of counterinsurgency than this. you have to ask, what are we doing there? >> i am not sure it's doomed at all. if you talk to people in the army, there's a couple facts. the first is this is not a broken army. they are over there, brave and

doing their job. i think the question is, is it right for a country or for a commander in chief, the president, to ask so much of these people? i mean, armies get used up in war always, and in particularly do they get used up in long wars. this war has been so long. you talk to the generals and you talk to the people involved in this, and they think if they can keep the troop level high, they have a strategy, they can make it kind of like iraq, where we have a phased withdrawal, and is it's a victory or stalemate, and we don't know yet in iraq, but it's not something that is hopeless. >> the out come is not going to be like iraq.

you can't compare them. >> you just don't know. >> we know a lot of things. >> no, you don't. look at iraq, everybody was running around and saying it will never work. there's a stalemate. let's be realistic about it. that's factual. >> there's structural differences. this is not a broken army. the troops coming back now, they are courageous and fearless. they have all the qualities every employer in america wants to see in their employees. they need to be some type of negotiations conversation between the taliban and the karzai government. if there is one group of people the karzai government trusts less than the american people is the taliban. and the only way that we're going to have any type of stability going forward is if there's negotiation and that's what my friends are seeing, they are stuck in the middle between the two forces. >> i want to get back to the

tough policy questions in just a minute, but i want to continue on the topic of what is going with our troops and some statistics here alarming. you talk about traumatic brain injuries since 2001, it's nearly 200,000. post traumatic stress disorder cases, almost 100,000. and suicides in the military, about 1,000. and then soldier deployed three or more times since september 11, it's over 100,000. we will be dealing with the cost of war and while we are in it and after we are in, moral questions and financial support as we move forward. >> war is incredibly tough. it's painful and expensive. it doesn't go away after we pull out of iraq or afghanistan. the toll it will take on the troops and the families and the

iraqis and afghans will go on for decades. most at home are doing well, but a percentage are not. many are coming home with issues. the suicide rates have been higher than the casualty rates. that's just active duty and army. there's no way to track suicides in veterans when they leave the military. we see a 17% unemployment rate. we have to ask ourselves, if we care so much about the troops and veterans, what are we doing to scale against that? are we putting our money where our mouth is? if this forces them to take note and get involved and do something about it, that's a good thing, let's have that conversation. >> helene, from the mccain point of view, should the president take the knocks where he is rushing for the exits because of your point, and is he hurting the policy because he wants to find the path out? >> i think that would be senator

mccain's argument, but when you hear president obama talk about it, and he consistently talks about it, how he feels when he sees the troops coming back, and he was talking about the israel and iran strike, and he brought it up again, when i am ordering the force, i am looking into the eyes of those people over there. is it really us who has been at war? no, it's our military members who have been at war. we have been insulated. we have been going to the grocery store, and maybe we might know somebody that is going to war, but at the end of the day, it's not -- i don't think the country really feels in a personal way that they have been in it. i think that's part of the dialogue we need to be having. it's how much we ask of such a small group of people. >> yes, what do we owe them? we owe those people doing the

work everything. i think president obama understands that. if he were here on sodium pentothal, he would say i feel stuck. war is ugly, and there's no simple way out. the military experts are telling him, you know, keep 68,000 troops there through the fighting season next year, and we can extract ourselves in a way -- now, you know, is that going to work? we don't know. but i think the agony of command really falls on him, and i think he is emotionally -- >> the tough part, jon, is in part because we have seen the history of just turning our back on the region before, so in your fantastic book, "where men win glory" about pat tillman, you read something in the postscript, and it says a lot about where we may be going. if staying in afghanistan is looking more and more like a no-win prospect for the united states, so too does pulling out. both options are fraught with uncertainty. american soldiers are apt to be engaged in afghanistan for years

to come, if not decades. if recent events are any indication americans are fighting and dying in pakistan as well -- that was in 2009. does that hold true now? >> yeah, it was clear then and it's clear now. pakistan -- afghanistan blames pakistan for their problems for good reason, and pakistan -- you have to think about what pakistan is concerned with. it's concerned about india. until you make peace with india and pakistan, over nuclear weapons, that's going to be there for decades. it's going to be a long, simmering war. you can't act unilaterally. you have to consider these very complex motives and interests in each of the countries. >> i asked you about redeployment. we were talking about that, and you were there with guys who would be deployed for a year,

and then what would happen -- >> i agree, the army is not broken. those guys are so stressed. i was in afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, when the 10th mountain division learned their 12-month tour had been extended. some of those guys went back to new york, and they were in new york when they learned that they had to go back, and they were not allowed to see their families and they had to get back on the plane and go to afghanistan. that was devastating, and that's just one unit. >> the military may not be broken, but it's tired. we have to ask ourselves, is it fair for them to go back for tours. is it good for america to have such something that exists. it's about time we started to have this discussion. the commander in chief has to ask the american people, is this the way we want to run our

country, and not just our wars. when john mccain served, everybody had a personal connection. now you can -- we know about pat tillman, and wes moore, because so few have served. >> it's also uncertainty. you have so many men and women waiting on orders to go into a mission and operation and they still have no clue what the objectives are. if you look at the surge, the surge in many ways accomplished objectives it set out to accomplish. and we have close to 180,000 afghan national army forces trained, and we can say we accomplished a great deal, but to think about the continued cost of $120 billion a year being put towards afghan

expenditures, and it's not put together by nato forces, but president karzai who came up with the date. >> the decider here is president obama. if you go back 2 1/2 years when he decided to turn 30,000 more troops to afghanistan, there was a lot of agony in that, and the general and his adviser in the white house had one of these moments, let me tell you what i really think, and he said to the president, he said this is a calculated risk, and in fact the risks are cumulative, so it amounts to a gamble. i think that's the most realistic assessment even now. it is a gamble. >> we are dealing with karzai, and he calls our troops demons. we are not demons. and our troops over there, despite this incident are trying to save the people and protect the afghan people.

we are not demons, anymore than the afghan people can be connected with the actions of taliban. >> i want to talk a little presidential politics. part of that, helene, is u.s. influence around the world. the u.s. role on the word. what is a reset of the foreign policy look like in the face of, you know, emerging threats, iran, on going threats, and to paul's point, if the army is so tired and our troops are so tired, so is the country, and war weary. the idea that we can keep meeting obligations in the leadership tests, it strains a reasonable outlook about political politics and presidential leadership? >> you see that again and again

and again now when you see the foreign policy -- the national security challenges we are facing right now. you see, unlike iraq now with the iran situation, iran's nuclear program, you see much more discretion about what would happen on day two after an american military strike, and with syria you heard senator mccain talking about the need for leadership on syria, but at the end of the day the obama administration does not want to do any sort of military action in syria because it's so complicated. we have to take into account the entire load that this entire military apparatus has been under and the strain it has been under for ten years, and the obama -- president obama talks a lot about sharing the burden, and he talks about multilateral, and the united states should have a leadership role around the world and it should be in conjunction with other countries, and it's like starting to move now, and i am not entirely sure where we come out. >> let me look at the political trend tracker.

we have been talking about the soldier id'd behind the killings in afghanistan, and now the puerto rico primary, and bob woodward, the reality is that mitt romney is a weak frontrunner and he can't put away what a lot of people think is a weak field, and you hear from senator mccain his views on the accumulating toll on romney as a candidate and the party by the time they get to the general election. what are you expecting in the next week? >> well, not just the week, but there will be a republican running against obama, and senator mccain said under the supreme court decision, all of the new 21st century robber barons can put tens of millions into the campaign, and it's negative and poison and venom, and we, nbc, "the new york times," "washington post," people in the media, i think we

will be tested to say can we present a clear-eyed view of who the candidates are, and not just have this negative atmosphere, i mean, that is -- i have never seen anything like it. during the nixon era, they had slush funds of $700,000, and now the slush fund will be $100 million. my god, what they are going to do. >> if you look at the president's job approval right now, he is hovering around a place he would like to hover, and that's 50% in terms of his job approval. what is your view of how strong or how weak president obama is at this point as you look at this republican field? >> i don't know how strong or weak he is, except the republican field is in such disarray, he has to be very happy. you know, colorado is an interesting state.

it's largely conservative, but places like boulder, denver, they are islands -- they call it the peoples' republic of boulder for a reason. you are in this beltway, and i am in my own beltway. >> but, jon you were at ground zero for the obama re-election campaign, because colorado is a state he needs, and they are really banking to keep his whole western strategy. >> when it comes down to it, it will be the economy. coloradoans are concerned about a lot of things, but if the economy keeps improving, he's in good shape, and if it doesn't, all bets are off, even with the unimpressive early republican field. >> i think one of the most dangerous things about the decision is not that they are keeping more candidates in the race than what needs to be in the race, it's the question of access. if your campaign is being funded and bank rolled by one or two

people, they are the ones that all will pick up the phone to call. >> it's a scandal. >> we will leave it there. thank you very much. we will continue about the war. coming up, george clooney, about a cause that later got him arrested outside of the embassy of sudan in washington this week. >> i stand together here with my father. i have one moment in time when they ask you, where were you, i want to stay i was standing on this side in history. time when you ha you ha they you ha this one's for theyall us lawnsmiths.

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george clooney made headlines this week, not for his acting but for his activism. we're back now. george clooney made headlines this week, not for his acting but for his activism. he met with president obama and testified on capitol hill. he talked about sudan's crisis, and the government's air strikes against their own people. on friday he was arrested outside the embassy of sudan during a planned protest. >> it was my first arrest. thank you for asking. >> they made an eight-day trip to the war-torn region. i sat down with them this week and asked them what they saw. >> we went up into the area where is still not settled after the north-south became the newest country in the world. and there's rebel fighting, obviously. we went up a road that was rough. they go back and forth, and there's a lot of dead bodies on the road. as we got further up and into the mountains, we see burned

villages and burned farms, and the people had to move into caves because every day they are bombed. we were there as the 200 millimeter rockets came over, and we saw three of them. so we saw a lot. we got a good view of what the move is, and the move basically is to hurt them, if you can, and they're not that accurate, and terrify them for the most part, and starve them to death. >> this is ethnic cleansing? >> no question about it. and there's virtually no one that would dispute that, except, of course, the government of sudan. >> what is at stake now? >> the worse case scenario is

the war inside sudan heats up, civil war, and a war resumes between sudan and south sudan. so if that war resumes, then this will be by far the largest war on the face of the earth. so the stakes are very high in terms of human life. we think that unless that is that kind of crisis diplomacy that needs to be interjected now, the worse case scenario could come to past. >> we were talking about what the united states needs to do, and it needs to do what we do really well, which is diplomacy. that we have done. we know how to do that. that means getting china involved. china has a $20 billion infrastructure built in for oil. they take 6% of their oil from the sudan or their import. south sudan turned off the oil in a fight with the north, because they pump all the oil to the north and then the north is keeping the money, basically. they shut it off. that investment to china is no longer good, and they're not getting any money. so they are going out on the rest of the market like everybody to try and get that 6% made up, and it's costing them more money and us more money at

the pump. we have a unique moment where if we got involved from the presidential level, and we're meeting with the president, to talk with president hu, and say we are not looking for angels or humanitarian causes, and i have done that and it doesn't work, but this is economically important for you and it could be helpful, we could work together and it would be beneficial to both of us to make sure that we help orchestrate a peace. >> has in some ways the video changed the paradigm where a force for social justice can come and can arise a little more organically? >> now that this kind of communication has taken a

quantum leap, the young people that put together the kony 2012 video tapped into a vein of interest and concern and compassion that i think most people just did not know existed. we seen it a lot. you go around to campuses and synagogues and churches all around the country, people care about these things but don't know about them, and if you tell them this is what is going on and this is what you can do to make a difference, people respond to that. >> if bono was able to put disease, aids and prevention on the map in the way the largest economies in the world confronted this, and he lauded president bush for launching this, and we are talking about military intervention, and through nato. oftentimes we're talking about military intervention

through nato or unilaterally. i mean, it depends. but the truth is we're going going to do that. nato is not going to go in there right now. the security counsel will always have somebody that will veto that. the united states is not going to do that. it's going to be hard to put a coalition to go in there and create a no-fly zone around the mountains. that's probably not going to happen. >> do you think if i ran for public office, i could have more impact on this than just george clooney the actor? >> i think i have a lot more influence on it here. there's no super pac is giving me money, and there is no outside influence for me. i can have an opinion, and it may not fit with the u.n., and it may not fit with what other people want, and i can say this is what i think is right and stand by it. i think it's a lot easier than running for office. i don't have any interest in that. >> what about the guy that has interest in being re-elected. there are some who believe that he is heading into calmer waters

for re-election and he looks good. do you think that's a danger sign? do you think president obama looks good to be re-elected? >> i think he always looked good to be re-elected, even before the field, and as we are still looking to find out what the field is, because i happen to believe that democrats are just very poor in general at explaining what it is when they accomplish something. i think they are bad at it. republicans are good at it. if i was a republican and if obama was a republican, i would be selling all of the you saved the auto industry, and you got osama bin laden, and you passed a health bill, and i would be able to sell his presidency as a successful one, but democrats are bad at that. we like to pick each other apart. that's our thing, you know. i think it's going to be an interesting time. the worst thing you can do is feel in any way safe or cocky, because you will always lose.

>> your friend, matt damon, as expressed disappointment. do you share that? >> no. matt and i are dear friends, and that's what makes the world go around. he teaches and that's a very important part for him. and i, on the other hand, the issues that i believe and the president that i voted for, i'm very proud of. >> i will ask you one artistic question because i will kick myself if i don't. >> go. >> where would you like to stretch yourself, go as an actor, yourself? >> i am thinking dance, david. i am thinking a musical. you know, maybe combining what we are doing here, sort of a war-crime musical, that's what i have been thinking about lately. >> with rebel leaders? >> i might even play a certain rebel leader, i might even do

that. i will tell you, i don't know what to do, i just try to find jobs that i would like to see movies of. that's what i like to do. i am enjoying -- i am in a good spot in my career right now, it's a good time for me. and i also, you know, i am a student of what it is i do for a living and understanding a good time in your career is temporary, so i will enjoy it while it lasts. >> and back to his activism, clooney said he made his fair share of mistakes and learned of that, and can you see the full interview with george clooney in which you can see on the blog, and that's presspass.msnbc.com. that's all for today. we will be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

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