janelle obama all next on palin taking with larry king. from the fantastic museum in washington d.c. it is now but there's no place like this the newseum as we call it right right my fiance yeah it's a want to say news museum and it will have david gregory the moderator of n.b.c. news meet the press he's moderated since december of two thousand and eight he was the chief white house correspondent during the regime of george w. bush and meet the press is the oldest running sunday news talk show in american television history when you got this job for we get of of things yeah and what was that like. it was extraordinary told you well our brar news president the time steve capice called it was him had died to die but it was some time after that as

you remember tom brokaw filled in i think n.b.c. news did the smart thing which is after something is significant is that to to ease the transition into put tom into the job i think that was appropriate and it was a nice way to bridge that gap because it was going to be a difficult transition for anybody and it was thanksgiving i was in new york with my wife and our kids and our president called and said i was going to be moderator of meet the press and you know there had been a lot of speculation. running up to that but i was i was blown away i mean it's. it was always something that i thought about i never thought that it would necessarily happen i could imagine tim leaving that job and i certainly couldn't have imagined it at that stage of my life thirty eight years old to be in that position so but i remain blown away because it's just an amazing job i interviewed larry speed that the first was. he was and he he really you know

he owned a piece of show and he yeah and he conceived of the show and you know we have a lot of photographs kind of the pictorial history of it and it's extraordinary and it was a radio show was a radio show and but you know rose kennedy wrote back and talked about what it meant for for her sons all three you know two then three three and four to have been on the program and ted kennedy spoke about how important it was to the family so yeah it was still dark was it was the guy and he really came up with the idea that you learn everything you can about the guest and you take the other side was sort of the basis of the accountability nature of the show oh and do the look at its history and has it changed really is still what it was was where you have that panel with the yeah and i look it's evolved over time. time but it became an hour from a half hour i mean one of the things i've tried to do in five years now is to understand

the changing tastes of the audience the expectations are very similar which is interesting expected good tough interview they want somebody to advocate for them not from an ideological point of view but you really call politicians out on their nonsense and to try to get to the truth of the matter but i you know not only is politics change but television is changes you know and so there's a lot more of these kinds of programs you can see politicians in other places it's not like it was where you'd say oh i'm not going to see them i want to see what they have to say on sunday so i think we change the program a little bit based on that and we still think about how the program volves and how it should have all those get to some of these girl know more about meet the press obama. up down up now down. how do you praise them. well i think for supporters they would say the guy was dealt a really bad hand he's stabilized the economy if you're a supporter you say you achieve something that progressives have not been able to achieve and that's sweeping health care legislation that ensures all americans if

they actually sign up for. days been he's had some successes in foreign policy and that he's wound down. america's wars in afghanistan and iraq. that's a great success right i mean i think that is the case for him. but i think the more objective case is that his major thrust his big day was to turn the economy around and that's not really happened i mean yes have things leveled off the the economy is getting better but it doesn't have those animal spirits yet there's a great deal of uncertainty that's why there's still so many people out of work a lot of businesses that are not investing there's a lot of concern about him and about america around the world in terms of his foreign policy and i think he's failed to do something that was the sort of imputed promise of his presidency which is that he was going to somehow break through this incredible period of transition that we're in where we have

a very polarized country till ideologically and a polarized capitol where we have big disagreements about taxes and spending and what government should be doing how to deal with our deficit how we should assert our strengths in the world these big disagreements about the. would you say that rather be lucky than good that career wise he's been lucky ran against a very weak candidate for the senate in illinois mccain was not a strong candidate with a terrible value if it's a terrible vice presidential candidate and then ran a great campaign locked into a not effective candidate the second time. i think anybody who has some level of success can can humbly say and accurately that they got a little bit lucky and i think in in obama's case it was also the circumstances of history you know there was a big desire to pull back from where america went post nine eleven i think that's in a really significant part of our history where the reaction to nine eleven was fierce

and american supported it for a long while and then they really got off of it and they really wanted this change and who better to represent change than the first african-american to seek high office at that level and to be able to do so successfully also incredibly skilled at campaigning and he demonstrated that the second go around the best we've seen was certainly one of the best in terms of the mechanics i mean you know you look at the bush reelection campaign in two thousand and four they were seen as incredibly good in these guys david plouffe and axelrod and company they appropriated a lot of those techniques a lot of the and improved on and design new ways i mean there's almost nothing that's unknowable now in politics and they really perfected that art is it hard for a lame duck to really be good well what it is i mean president bush used to say i covered him there's a certain amount of political capital you have and you use it and then once it's dried up then you're done and the problem is that. a lot of political capital got

soaked up by this president in the early part of his presidency he got health care and he got it on a party line vote and that has real repercussions because that didn't set in motion the tea party but it accelerated it and then you get to a. place where you're in your second term and you want to do the next big thing and you don't have the reservoir of support to do it you know the the budget wars to have really dealt a blow and we've been through this debt ceiling fight in a way that's also really we continue so i mean look at bush he comes in a second term he's so debilitated by iraq he tries social security and there's no no more political capital of the immigration forget about it he had no more juice point so yes being a being a lame duck is hard in that if he comes on you pretty fast in that second term some of the anger expressed at him toward him do you think it's racist i think some of it is i mean there's certainly pockets of that i mean you know there is racism in the country but there's also an effort to deal with it in my eyes political

opponents that courses through our society from top to bottom it's in our politics it's in our social but i you know i did an interview with a guy today you all levin has written a book the great debate which is really interesting about the the the antecedents of our left right divide in this country looking at edmund burke and his debate with tom paine i mean you know we have gone through incredible struggles in this country where we used to kill each other over some of these political disagreements so yeah there are still some you know loud nasty parts of our democracy but i do think the context of history calms us down a little bit to say yeah the first african-american president america is probably going to be subjected to some racism is certainly some of that why did they not how did they get off on the wrong track with health care how did that was the website set up so badly. i thought that they let that happen i think. a couple of things i think that the president understood intuitively that if if the only way you make

the health care system work like this to insure more americans is if young healthy people sign up he knew intuitively that the means of signing up had to be great the user experience had to be great otherwise young people are not going to mess around with technology that doesn't work they don't have time for that. but i think what he thought was the right idea the government has a really time hard time delivering what people say this is the internet president look what he did in his campaign well that was a private company that ran his campaign a private enterprise it wasn't government the government's not as good at this that's the bottom line and the fact that he didn't know it's kind of underscores that second problem which is i don't know who's around him larry. who really uses the muscle of the oval office to get things done it hasn't been his chief of staff and there's none of the people who say the president wants this we're going to get this right or people are going to lose it if you lose your jobs it has you're going to wall we're going to get this right he doesn't seem to have the leadership style he doesn't have that toughness about him and so making the machinery of government work is that much harder so if you're running as

a democrat it might depend on where you're running do you want obama with you. it depends where you're running i think you know here and here's here's what the polling shows now and here's what democrats tell me they say look if we can get people signed up and we're out of this crisis zone the polling shows a couple things one it shows that people don't want to repeal obamacare they think it should be fixed but they still think it's a step in the right direction as long as it's not a step backward then yeah we're going in the right direction to they've got some polling that shows that republicans are still really hurt themselves with a government shutdown so if some of those swing areas by and large he's still a net benefit if he continues to be this unpopular you know then i think you start you know you start going your own way and you start charging your own course and you have to run as a party around some of these big things like health care a lot of democrats are worried about that there may not be worried and you know nancy pelosi is districts in san francisco but some of these others especially those senate if you're running in the senate if you're

a hagan in the south or mark pryor in arkansas then you really got worried because it's a public ones health care they do want health care and the you know you have a majority you think this is still a bad idea they think it's confusing if you dig into that a little bit i still think people want it to be successful and the reason why this is such critical days is you know you look at any of these entitlement programs once they become part of the firmament of the entitlement state then you can't take away people are going to give them up. and i think that's what they're counting. what we have when you discuss edmund burke i guess we've always had it. would you say you're looking at this country right now we have an unpopular president unpopular congress who's popular. yeah i really am stuck with a watch formidable american figure who most politically would say yes i think there are some governors who have. they may not have it on

a national scale i think chris christie has some of that. you know i think there are some governors who are seen as separate from the malays of washington who are sort of outside of this you know and they have a little bit of that i think there's some some mayors who are increasingly popular in places where they're actually getting things done but hillary. yeah i think she's still nationalized she's still a national figure and i think she's increasingly admired look i mean once you're outside of this glare you get more popular even george w. bush is getting more popular but yeah i mean i think hillary clinton is popular i think she did as secretary of state now look she's going to get heavily criticized in scrutinized for her role as secretary of state both for how much she actually accomplished and then what she wasn't able to do visited bogosity i mean you and hillary care about always being brought up by republicans as well and so they're going to bring back all of that so she's certainly not a new figure but i think she's

a pretty respected figure who is able as secretary of state to stay out of the the rancor of the past six years we'll be right back on politicking with david gregory at the newseum in washington d.c. don't go with. st augustine. e.g. . undercover team of journalists trying to release wiki leaks documents. united states is trying. to meet. they encounter fear ignorance and pressure. country blocks the way to information freedom. media stocks are to. react to situations i

have read the reports. and no i will leave them to the state department to comment on your latter point. to carry out a car is on the docket no god. no more weasel or. when you fade a direct question be prepared for a change when you throw a punch be ready for a. pretty tough speech and down to freedom to crush. it is a whistleblower edward snowden has always maintained his motivation to force a serious conversation about the all encompassing surveillance state well he certainly has achieved this so with mission accomplished is it time to cut a deal with them or even force them apart. would lead when david gregory on this edition of politics with larry king

a recent quinnipiac poll hillary clinton chris christie dead heat a little early do you think christie can get the nomination. hillary here's what here's where i think his strength is i mean it's easy to say no he's not conservative enough to get roughed up in the primaries first of all he is pretty conservative too he's going to a lot of big money in the party behind a lot of republican donors want to write a check to chris christie you've got to worry about him peaking a little bit too early i think his temperament will be a question he's got away with it is new jersey governor but he's a very plainspoken guy he's got a lot of regular appeal and he's demonstrating an ability to solve problems i think that we're going to find out in the next year or so how much damage has been done by rip republican intransigents in washington is it seen as principled or just the tip of the spear for the fight that conservatives demand around the country or are they going to say it's time to pull back a little bit and go

a little bit more centrist aren't they going to from or the fights to end oprah i mean you certainly have to do is look at twenty twelve but who won in the end you know you can have a lot of fights but the mainstream guys the one in the end the guy with the money the guy who's still the establishment choice so you know there's a lot of talk about the return of barry goldwater in sixty four the truth is we haven't had that you know and you didn't have it in two thousand and twelve you still had mitt romney winning despite all of that now that could change i mean could ted cruz get the nomination i don't really see it rand paul is actually moderating some. you know paul ryan who's pretty conservative is now with a new budget deal beings them ahead of him now they're mad at it right because they because a lot of this this tea party caucus things what they achieved before was just the beginning so yeah there's going to be a big fight about that certainly much more of a fight then you're seeing on the left although there's some fighting on that does joe biden go. i'm hard pressed to see how joe biden runs if hillary is serious and if the party coalesces around her early i think that just seems like

that's a fight he want to avoid. although you know it's not as if either one of them are the future you know i mean if you're still digging into the past year of democratic politics in terms of who the nominee would anyone not want to go on meet the press you get turned down we get turned down i mean i think there i think people make so many calculations about whether there's too much downside not enough upside and the one thing that i that i'm always so proudest of about meet the press and its history and over the past five years is that you can come on and say your piece you can get your message across and that's very important to me i think it's important to be able to ask a tough question to be able to ask follow up questions but it's still a place to come on and be heard. but you know despite that yeah there are people particularly candidates who think it's you know something that they should probably avoid holgate we're in the first amendment gallery. and as fit as you

how's that is the first amendment fair when will. that i mean. there was problems i know with the bush white house i'm now told it's gotten here from los angeles that a.p.s. photo director recently slammed the obama administration as oh well ian pictures aren't allowed to be taken. what's going on you know i think there's always some battle inside the white house and i remember them in terms of access to the president and whether you have photo journalists as well as other journalists who are writing run television in his presence i think there's a lot of budget cutting that goes on around how the kind of resources dedicated to covering the president i think the first amendment is very pretty well i think that there are a lot of platforms for expression i think we have ordinary citizens who have platforms a way they've never had before can do to reach us those of us on air those of us with big. you know broadcast platforms so yeah i mean i think you know there's

a lot of debates around the edward snowden's in publishing but that's that's always going to be a tension about what the government things are you know secrets that must be you know maintained for security versus what the public needs to know to have a debate i mean there's no question that whatever you think about words no we wouldn't be debating the security state and the reach of surveillance had all of that not been disclosed does anything about social media frighten you but i think there's an anonymity to social media that creates a lot more coarseness and i think it seeps into our politics where you know people are just have no qualms about unleashing really negative nasty ways and it only sort of accelerates with sort of a racism in the president before but even if it's not racism it's an effort to deal a jew demise public officials. to attack their motives to attack their tactics their strategy but to really just attack them it is people and i think that scare

a lot of people in this town i mean i think about your time here in the days and all the rest and the comedy c.e.o. mit why has left this place because those battle lines have been drawn i think social media has something to do with that it's a piece of it that is change the culture. about competition meet the bursar's alone in the ball game and no one certainly not whether it's. absolutely i mean it's only going to make us stronger in as i said we we see the need to think about what's you know what does it mean to be meet the press in two thousand and thirteen at age sixty six how do we respond to an expectation that viewers have of the program but also younger viewers who may not be viewers they may be watching online they may be watching clips or reading clips on my twitter feed so i think that's good i think we have to think hard about where television's going how it's evolving and how we reach people and i think those demands have changed i mean the idea of sunday morning appointment viewing that has changed it's not just the d.v.r.

but it's people have to go about their lives differently of the three major network c.b.s. does not own the cable news networks. a.b.c. owns e.s.p.n. sports networks are the only major network that owns a cable news network. and therefore comes in the area of controversy martin bashir how do you at n.b.c. u m s n b c but it's a part it's part of the family that has its own gig and that has its own voice and its own community i've always felt that viewers get it you know they really do understand the difference between a primetime show on m.s.n. b c versus watching meet the press or watching brian williams now yeah do people start to conflate those we are all one big company and we have to deal with that but i know i know where the lanes are and there are different lanes and i think by and large viewers do understand that they know there is a. liberal views don't think therefore meet the press is liberal no i think i

think we are and should be judged on our own merits i'm not saying that there isn't some some bleed over from that in terms of people's minds but i do think that people understand just as you know if you pick up the wall street journal editorial page understand you're reading a conservative editorial page versus the new york times versus the rest of the paper i just think that people get so yeah i think they're part of the family when it is they've is there any way to go from hosting meet the press like do you want brian williams job or the no no it is way to go give me a job no no no i guy you know i couldn't be i want to stay i want to stay and i want to succeed and i want to keep evolving the show and i want to keep growing. and i'm forty three years old i've been doing this for five years i love it. you know there just really aren't other jobs that i want i love i love being in washington i love this story i love the breadth of what we do so i don't think in

terms like that this was an opportunity that came to me. you know at a time that i really didn't expect it. and. just incredibly how it is that suppose it is only a cable news network came to you with an offer of a primetime gig. yeah i mean i just so you know forty three it's very you know you don't want to host meet the press when you're sixty three i would assume you know i don't know i don't know that far out i don't know what i want to do or what they want to do i think you know. you know i don't just oh no that would be for me you know not at this stage of my life or my career i'm exactly where i think i should be right now and it's both because the job is great because i think. there's a great challenge in figuring out what that next chapter is in five years in i think we're only in the beginning of you know. succeeding tim after tim's death was very difficult and so there's

a longer arc here to really establish myself as my own person in this program and charting a future for that and so i really do take a take a longer view of it and that's where my excitement this is the work that was for good it is good i mean yeah yeah i mean this is a really exciting time at n.b.c. we've had a fair amount of change at n.b.c. i've now been here you know a long time sixteen years plus came in one thousand nine hundred sixty. yeah it is good. but. i started covering the local news and i covered the o.j. simpson trial you were there when i was i was there yeah i started and i was working at a local station and they borrowed me down to a division of n.b.c. and i was brought down for a couple of days or station released the area in sacramento the great casey area and then i never went back and i went back and i was in l.a.

and then i was in chicago so you know i covered i covered trials and i covered the mcveigh case which is how i met my wife and so i was you know i was off you know covering trials there and i thought i would start up in los angeles and san fernando valley big dodgers fan me to yeah there are obviously. i don't always jealous because you're there and i you know i go there every night you gotta keep in touch with them or i do try and you know woman touch with now which is one of the great joys of my life and my son give me such a hard time is steve garvey who i love who is my favorite player growing up and now i'm in touch with them and it thrills me and loosely my son and his son go to camp together is that right to florida his son's got a player is very good at. nothing but the baseball is the sports maybe. sports is great if i were only qualified and it's so no unimportantly important it's great. really important. pleasure that. we did it to david

gregory our guests thank you for joining us on politicking from my viewers out there you can join my conversation our conversation on facebook to share your thoughts on twitter by tweeting me at king's things and using the politicking hashtag have a holiday all of us as we close special look at christmas in washington including some special scenes inside the white house what. i would like to introduce the first lady of the united states mrs michelle obama well hello everyone i am thrilled to welcome you here to the white house are you excited. visitors arrive the very first thing they'll see is a tree decorated to pay tribute to our armed forces.

all those people who visit the white house will see dozens of trees in reste they're going to see thousands of ornaments some of the best sights they'll see our kids enjoying all this just wonderful glory you know some of the best times in this white house and just watching the faces of kids as they walk through this house and count the trees and look at the ornaments. have a happy holiday from my family dollar of yours enjoy this holiday season be safe be happy and gather around together and remember what this is all about you all take care love you my thanks.

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