i am pleased to have david remnick back at this table. welcome. >> rose: thanks for having me. >> so here it is -- >> rose: you say 22 pages like it's a 500 pound weight. it's such an enticement to read. >> rose: 17,000 words? >> something like that. a little short of that. >> rose: how did this come about? >> well, you know, i wrote a book about him a few years ago and it's not a secret that the -- every white house complains about the short attention span of the press and politico and the wires and how oppressed they feel by it so i tried to use that to my advantage and say, look, let's set up something where depth is the goal. we report on the white house all the time, investigatively and members of the -- profiles of members of the administration but let's try to do a portrait of the president in a particular time with on-the-record interviews. and it took some doing. but finally they acceded to it. they agreed. >> rose: do you feel that he feels like, you know, that the kind of media we have today, a, he's not necessarily suited for

somebody else brings it up which happened with david remnick with the new yorker.ight. it's a big conservative talking point that barack obama is another jesse jackson or another louis farrakhan, or whatever. and they keep pushing that. >> and it's also not just barack obama. look, the very nature of the fact that we have an african american president means we're going to have a different conversation than we did when bill clinton was president, than george bush being president, and that race may factor into it. that does not mean we're playing the race card. that does not mean we're racializing the issue. that means we're acknowledging this is a person who comes to this job with a different set of experiences. and frankly, instead of experiences that is more in line, we're becoming a majority minority country. and, you know, that threatens some people. that's not playing the race card that is a conversation we cannot be afraid to have in this country. >> here comes something that always impresses me, the president's candor here. here he is in the new yorker articl

i am pleased to have david remnick back at this table. welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> here it is. >> use said 22 pages like it is a 500 pound weight. it is such an enticement to read. >> 70,000 words. >> something like that. >> how did this come about? >> i wrote a book about him a few years ago. it is not a secret that every white house complains about the short attention span of the press, and politico, and how pressed they feel about it. we report on the white house all the time. let's try to do a portion of the president at a particular time with on the record interviews. it took some doing. finally, they agreed. >> do you feel like he feels like the media we have today -- that he thinks he is better in long form. >> -- how did lincoln communicate to the president question mark text and speeches, and people read them. there was no radio. no television. it was quite a different thing. i don't want to overestimate his powers. that is the way he is oriented. even when he talks, he slows down. he is very deliberate. he is thinkin

go to david remnick, you reported from many years from the soviet union from moscow.interviews because he wants to reassure people. he said i have a lot of gay friends off-camera. but he can't help himself. he absolutely believes this law is the right thing. doesn't to want change it. and he even tied it to the need to increase birth rates in russia. >> it's a completely disingenuous answer that he gave you. this law has given the signal for hate crimes all over the country. they are horrible. and there's videos on youtube all over the place. second of all, given the cue to the state media, television is the key, to be completely and utterly homophobic. to turn on the television and see russian orthodox priests, members of parliament speak in the most disgusting homophobic way possible is completely dispiriting, highly influential and sanctioned by the kremlin. what he says to broadcasters on the edge of the olympics, and there were clemencies as well. but this has had an enormous effect. >> hard to believe that he'll go through with punishing people during the olympi

let me read a couple of the quotes from the president in this interview with david remnick in the "newf a jv team puts on lakers uniforms, that doesn't make them kobe bryant. i think there is a discontinuing between the capacity and reach of a bin laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian. so here the president seems to be belittling the current al qaeda threat to the united states. which may be a challenge to some of these jihadists out there. when you read that, what did you think? >> well, i thought yes and no. coral died, as he points out, happen basically eviscerated. when osama bin laden was taken out, that was the end of their -- >> aman al zawahiri. >> he has it, but much less p potent. however, hezbollah, which interesting is a shia group. al qaeda is a sunni group and everybody understands the tensions between those two streams of the muslim religion, does have international reach. and it is still being armed by iran, hopefully those c

the president then said the following to david remnick. no doubt there's some folks who just really dislike me because they don't like the idea of a black president. now, i have lost count, truly, of the number of moments of nasty and/or weird right-wing racialized panics in the obama era. but this little episode just may be the most perfect, succinct, microcosm of our entire politics for the first five years of the first black president. because here is the other part of the obama quote about the effect of race. quote, now the flip side of it is, there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt, precisely because i'm a black president. so, the president says, there are some people who don't like me because they don't like the idea of a black president, which is undoubtedly true. there are 300 million people in america. some of them are straight up racist and some don't like having a black president. but then, barack obama, make sure to also say that on the other hand, his race h

. >> now contrast that tone with an interview he did with the new yorker's david remnick.rstand that there are going to be limits to the good we can do and the bad that we can prevent, but that if i am doing my very best and basing my decisions on the core values and ideals i was brought up with and i think are pretty consistent with those of most americans, that at the end of the day things will be better rather than worse. when talking about the fights in washington he now describes the political process this way. if you're doing good and bad things there will be hair on it. they're not going to be clean and neat. the far cry -- >> these arguments we're having over government, war, taxes, these are serious arguments. they should aarouse people's passions and it's important for everybody to join in the debate with all the vigor that the maintenance of a free people requires. >> and what about the president's own destiny? he now offers a view that sees a path to political and social change as incremental, one where people adapt to surroundings instead of changing them. he

joining us now is the author, david remnick, the editor of "the new yorker." dition to that very long initial article, you've now posted even more and i'm going to read a sentence or two because i want your insight. "democrats up on capitol hill that i have relationships with know that the things i'm fighting for are things they care about, that they deeply -- that they care deeply about and that i have a genuine commitment to seeing them succeed. you haven't seen me, i think, go out of my way to play against democrats on the hill but i've tried to be supportive of them in every way that i can." my take away from that is -- and you were talking apparently about one of the serious criticisms that he gets, he doesn't really spend a lot of time with democrats or republicans up on capitol hill the way ronald reagan did, with tip o'neil but go ahead and give me your understanding of what he was driving. >> well, i think he thinks that doing all of those things that lbj did, shmoozing only really matters on the margins and the reason he's having trouble getting legis

the david remnick article i read in "the new yorker" made me sympathetic for president bush.he said, "it's a crummy job." mike didn't have the same impression. first, you. on the david remnick piece, read through it and the incoming in so quick and so fast and you never get to be the president you want to be. george w. bush was going to have a restraint in foreign policy and barack obama was going to do all of these different things and, instead, he is talking about nsa and gitmo is still open, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. >> right. >> what did you think when you were reading the piece? and talk about why it's a crummy job. >> i think you run for president and the entire objective is so humanize your candidate to show the kind of person they would be be, how they would transform the office of the presidency. that is our romance novel, right, in american politics? we want to fall in love with our candidate. every single thing about being president is dehumanizing. the scrutiny of the press corps forces all of them into near isolation. the low gistics of the white house, th

. >>> coming up at the top of the hour, "the new yorker" david remnick is coming up. >> a great pieceor of the dr. martin luther king jr. holiday. "morning joe" is back in a moment. [ laughing ] want to play hide and seek? yeah! 1... 2... 6... 10! [ female announcer ] piÑa colada yoplait. it is so good when you need a little escape. [ mom ] still counting. it is so good when you need a little escape. (voseeker of the sublime.ro. you can separate runway ridiculousness... from fashion that flies off the shelves. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. and only national is ranked highest in car rental customer satisfaction by j.d. power. (natalie) ooooh, i like your style. (vo) so do we, business pro. so do we. go national. go like a pro. verizon innovators are creating air and soil sensor networks that help use water wisely, so american farms can keep growing for generations to come. because the world's biggest challenges deserve even bigger solutions. powerful answers. verizon. really? 25 grams of protein. what do we have? all

but david remnick is a wonderful writer, he's spent a lot of time studying the president.rticle. the president seems to be debating himself at times, saying he still thinks he can still get some things done, though it's still a tough climate in washington. he describes himself and the presidency as you're a relay swimmer in a relay race. you get your one paragraph of what you're trying to write. at times he's that aspirational president who won in 2008 and at times he seems to have more modest aspiration. >> we hear the pot is not any worse than alcohol. that will get some buzz. but i really was taken -- first of all, he's talking to the media and he knows the media is not his friend. but he seems beat down. maybe that's just about interpretation. but where do you hear he is in terms of his enthusiasm for keeping the good fight up? >> again, you get in fits and starts. you'll talk to some who see the president and they'll say he's energized for this fight. he'll give a state of the union address just around the corner, he'll talk about raising the minimum wage. if he can d

to do going forward, he didn't seem to me as beaten down as i thought he would be based on that david remnicknew yorker" story. a guy who is an author, has written two books and is already preparing for a third was talking about his paragraph in american history. he seemed confident but at the same time, this is new, this approach of like, okay, i'm going to call these ceos and try to get them to agree to this. it is a hemmed in obama in terms of his ambition. matt? >> i thought, going back to the state of the union, he was right to strike such an upbeat tone and it's the right tone politically but the sum of the policies he's talking about is relatively small. and to me the startling thing -- and i can understand why they are pivoting this way but the startling thing is here you are five years into a presidency and you're saying effectively we still don't know how to work the levers of power. that's a remarkable admission for a president who has already been re-elected. >> our friend peter baker from "the new york times" describe its as, obama disdained clinton's small steps and now takes hi

. >> the new yorker interview, there is one other statement, sentence that the president told david remnickreally dislike me because they don't like the idea of a black president. you have to put that in the mix of this conversation. >> and he also said there were some blacks and whites that maybe give him the benefit of the doubt because he was black. and i think it was a very balanced statement. of course, the right wing said he was playing the race card. joe madison, bill press, i'm going have to leave there it. thanks for your time this evening. have a great weekend. >> good to be with you, reverend. >> still ahead, remember all those republican myths about health care? well, today they came face-to-face with the facts. >>> but first, why we might be seeing a lot more of the first lady's epic mom dance. stay with us. >>> speaker john boehner was in los angeles last night. he made his first appearance on "the tonight show" with jay leno. and i have to give him credit. he made some news, and he was pretty funny. >> did your parents live to see your success? >> i know what you're trying to

i want to talk more about it with david remnick of "the new yorker," did the interview with john ridley, just nominated for an oscar for his screenplay "12 years a slave." david, it's a fascinating article, interviews with the president, and she spoke about race in a way he never has. "there's no doubt there are some folks who dislike me because they don't like the idea of a black president," and he added there are some people that like me because i am african-american. >> that's a formulation he's careful to make, the second part as much as the first part. i don't know that the second part is as much in evidence anymore as the first part, and the right wing kind of twitter sphere went berserk on it. but really? is this such a mystery that there are people in the united states that don't like barack obama because he's black? >> just the reaction to what the president said sort of points to, i guess, why this president hasn't spoken more about race. >> clearly. this is one of those subject matters that this individual, the president, has had to dance around for several years now, going i

president obama has clarified his thinking about marijuana in an interview with the "new yorker's" david remnickn well documented i smoked pot as a kid and i view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes i smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. i don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol." when asked if marijuana is less dangerous, when pressed on that point, less dangerous than alcohol, the president allowed the obvious, that it is less dangerous in terms of its impact on the individual consumer. "it's not something i encourage, and i've told my daughters i think it's a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy." as for the legalization of marijuana in colorado and washington the president said it's important for it to go forward "because it's important for society not to have a situation in which a large portion of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a few, a select few get punished." joining me now is msnbc's ronan pharaoh. ronan, it's an extraordinary statement from the president, speaking as a father, speaki

it fits the other day with david remnick of the "new yorker" no more i'm a transformational presidentn the same party, rear in the same faction. >> that's right yeah, clearly this is kind of an apoint ining. this is the best that whatever their rivalry, they are a part of the same institution. i think it's not great for the democratic party to have these sorts of apoint inings. i mean, even though it's too early to say this is a done deal. we could have said the same thing in 2006. the idea that she's just going to be kind of chosen by the money mockers in the party. by the institutional powers in the party, this, one result of this analysis is that anyone who was even thinking of hillary, of challenging hillary clinton in the primaries is going to think twice. >> yeah, but the other way, you just opened up an opportunity. i thought michelle had the opportunities of a lifetime or e elizabeth warren or somebody on the left the populous left to say, hey, this isn't the way we do business, whose turn is it? who's got the money? >> look, there is always a profound discomfort. if hillary c

telling editor, david remnick, if he had a son, he wouldn't let them play football, for fear of concussions. he also revealed new details of his own views on marijuana. calling pot use a vice, but adding, "i don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol." >> i, barack hussein obama, do solemnly swear. >> reporter: five years ago, vowing change. >> let us brave once more the icy currents and endure what storms may come. >> reporter: come those storms did. last year alone saw a controversy over nsa spying, a government shutdown, and the botched rollout of health care reform. and now battered by those struggles, a more realistic obama, did he say describing himself as swimming upstream, admitting he may end his second term without accomplishing some of his biggest goals. obama likens himself to a relay swimmer in a river full of rapids. he says at the end of the day, we're part of a long-running story. we just try to get our paragraph right, as he talks about reducing income inequality. it's a goal that he's recently made a hallmark of his second term. >> we want to restore the essential promi

. >> he was -- you know, he describes it, i think, best, in the david remnick article in the "new yorker" and i've heard him say it before, he considers he happens to be president these eight years and the way he looks at the job and certainly the way he approached the state of the union is, ok, what can i get done? and what can we accomplish, what can we take care of, get in good shape and have it be completed? and then -- but he understands it's a long continuum. what can we advance so the next president can pick it up. climate change, he's going to make a lot of progress dealing with it but it's not going to be resolved at the ovene his presidency. but what can you -- what are we advancing and that is -- and he has -- that's the theory about, with pre-k we introduced it last year, pre-k for all. we got some money appropriated to expand it somewhat just in the last budget agreement and we'll do more this year and we'll keep pushing on it. it's not something you expect to you dopted in a year but have a couple of years. he looks at this as a long arc. it may with his presidency, what he

he gave an interview to david remnick, he said "being president is like being a runner a relay race."s chase it a long. so i don't think we'll see radical proposals but i would like to see a radical definition of the problem. we know he will talk about e inequality and lower social mobility so we would like to see the description of that and maybe some gesture towards bigger solutions even if in the interim he's proposing a few executive actions. >> woodruff: we have a couple excerpts that have been prepared for delivery and one thing he says is that inequality has deepened an upward mobility has stalled and our job is to reverse these tkaoeudz. is it possible to reverse tides in the midterm of the second term? >> it's tough but there's no place like the presidency, it's the bully pulpit, to lead. the numbers are staggering. the president made in the speech in early december. productivity of the country has increased 90% in the past 35 years yet the average family's wages are up only 8%. there's been a widening, widening gap and it's not only bad ethics, it's bad economics. the lack o

. >> were you surprised that david remnick got so much exclusive access to the president? aordinary. >> well, david is one of the best journalists in this country and i'm not just saying that because he's my boss but -- i would say that even if he wasn't my boss so it didn't surprise me. >> he wrote a book about the president as well. very quickly -- >> wolf, those images you just showed -- >> go ahead, ana. >> those images that you just showed of president obama, the obama of the 2004 democrat convention and the obama today, that tells you the great difference. look how much he has aged between the inspirational, the you youthful, the idealistic president obama and his head has gone gray. >> is he a lot more humble than he was then. guys, thanks very, very much. >>> just ahead, new allegations that chris christie's allegation threatened to withhold sandy relief funds if it didn't get what it wanted. i'll talk to the deputy speaker about whether or not they are true. sf >>> plus, more than a year after his arrest, what could be a promising new sign that the detainee kenneth

. >> here's a quote in the this long interview the president gave david remnick over at "the new yorker." he said, "the issue has been the inability of my message to penetrate the republican base so that they feel persuaded that i'm not the caricature that you see on fox news or rush limbaugh but i'm somebody who is interested in solving problems and pretty practical." >> it's somebody that has accepted reality. one of my big criticisms of obama is his analysis of american politics from 2004 to 2008 was flawed. he really believed that polarization was something that any president could come. look how bill clinton was treated by the conservatives. they were savaged by the bases of the opposite party. he was never going to win conservatives. it's funny that he thought he could. >> he thought he could. >> i think this is something that happens a lot to presidents, which is that they overturn their mandates and, of course, when president obama was elected, the hope was great in this country and i think the president himself has told people that he was surprised about the extent of the oppos

entering this period where lame duck has been tossed around, this period in his second term, it was david remnick in the new yorker magazine, a long article, a long sustained access interview with the president over many stops who put a sentence in the middle of the article to reset everyone's expectations and remind us what it took to get here. and i'm going to quote from it. a president after all who, quote, won two terms as only 17 of 44 presidents have and did so as a black man with an african father and a peculiar name. one consonant away from the world's most notorious terrorist. something everybody forgets in the game here. >> i think it was because of that being so unlikely that there was so much projected onto him because he was thinking singular figure. and i think the president is still trying to recover from the leadership deficiencies he's had actually operating in washington given this auroa that surrounde him. >> two pictures to show you. the moment when he talked about the first lady's background, his own and how a son of a tavern owner from ohio can grow up to be the speaker of t

. >> he was -- you know, he describes it, i think, best, in the david remnick article in the "new yorker" and i've heard him say it before, he considers he happens to be president these eight years and the way he looks at the job and certainly the way he approached the state of the union is, ok, what can i get done? and what can we accomplish, what can we take care of, get in good shape and have it be completed? and then -- but he understands it's a long continuum. what can we advance so the next president can pick it up. climate change, he's going to make a lot of progress dealing with it but it's not going to be resolved at the ovene his presidency. but what can you -- what are we advancing and that is -- and he has -- that's the theory about with pre-k we introduced it last year, pre-k for all. we got some money appropriated to expand it somewhat just in the last budget agreement and we'll do more this year and we'll keep pushing on it. it's not something you expect to get adopted in a year but you have a couple of years. he looks at this as a long arc. it may with his presidency, wha

month's issue of "the new yorker" features an extensive profile of president obama written by david remnicke complicated intersection of race and the role of the challenging political questions saying, quote, there's a historic connection between some of the arguments we have politically and the history of race in our country and sometimes it's hard to disentangle those issues. you can be somebody who worries about the power of the federal government but what's also true obviously is that philosophy is wrapped up in the history of state's rights and the context of the civil rights movement and the civil war and calhoun. there's a pretty long history there. implicit in the president's statement is that an understanding to the approach to national policy must recognize a diverse american electorate. a point of divergence is the extent to which those solutions recognize that so-called diversity issues, questions concerning race and gender are also economic issues. and so, you know, matt, i wanted to -- i want to appreciate that my president can do intersectional thought and accept it. i haven'

the new yorker has released new excepts from david remnick's interview with president obama.th members of congress and doesn't try to twist arms like lbj. quote, there have been times where i've been contrained by the fact that i had two young daughters who i wanted to spend time with and that i wasn't in a position to work the social scene in washington. but having said all that, the issue has been the inability of my message to penetrate the republican base so that they feel persuaded that i'm not the caricature that you see on fox news or rush limbaugh but i'm interested in solving problems and pretty practical and that a lot of the things we have put in place worked better than people might think. >> what do you think, mika, about him talking about than constrained by having two young daughters and not able to work the social scene? >> i think the social scene is important, unfortunately. i think it's game. you can get too caught up in it like, for example, the governor's wife of virginia where you care about all of these other things but you got to connect with people. a