, there was a lot of resistance. >> and she ran into a brick wall, primarily with denis mcdonough, one of the strongest voices in the administration for not, you know, getting directly involved militarily in syria. >> smith: throughout the summer and fall of 2012, officials in the white house met as often as twice a week, trying to decide who, if anyone, to back. some people would say we're simply not nimble enough to be engaged in these kinds of conflicts-- that the saudis, the qataris, the kuwaitis, the emirates, turks, were aiding other rebel groups. >> that's absolutely true. >> smith: and we were sitting around, having an ongoing conversation that one aide described to us as groundhog day. >> yeah, that's one of the challenges that we have, but it's also one of the strengths of our system, is that we are a nation of laws, and that when it comes to providing particularly lethal assistance particularly to non-state actors, we need to find a way that we can do that within the bounds of our laws. >> i think sometimes, we think that our ability to impose order and solutions on very com

more morell says it was also a mistake after requested by denis mcdonough to escort him to capitol hill. and when he retired, he told "the wall street journal" he was interested in advising future presidential campaigns but anonymous officials close to the secretary of state -- >> are you advising the hillary clinton campaign? >> no. >> will you? >> i see myself bret as an intelligence professional. nonpartisan. i am not going to be working for anybody's campaign. >> reporter: but morell is now a paid consultant whose leadership includes mrs. clinton's principle gatekeeper. he's willing to testify in front of the benghazi select committee but he hasn't been officially asked forward. >>> after the break, jeb bush admits to a mistake while hillary clinton remains mum on the campaign trail. here's what some of our fox affiliates are covering around the country. guns recovered from both parties in a road rage shooting incident involving george zimmerman acquitted in the death of trayvon martin. the suspect was involved in an ongoing dispute with zimmerman. zimmerman's attorney says he was h

my chief of staff, denis mcdonough, we take walks around the south lawn usually when the weather's goodmetimes it's just talk about values. and one of our favorite sayings is our job is to guard against cynicism. particularly in this town. and i think it's important when it comes to dealing with issues of poverty for us to guard against cynicism and not buy the idea that the poor will always be with us and there's nothing we can do. because there's a lot we can do. question is do we have the political will the communal will to do something about it. >> thank you, mr. president. i feel as a journalist maybe i'm the one representative of cynicism up here so i'll try to do my job. i want to go through the panel, then come back to you, mr. president. i want to invite bob, and i'm going to encourage us to reach for solutions, but before we get there, i think it's important to say that your book bob, you know your book "our kids" is above all a moral call on the country of all the kids -- >> we're just listening into the beginning of this panel discussion, as you hear there, moderator e.j. di

my chief of staff, denis mcdonough -- we take walks around the south lawn, usually when the weather is and a lot of it is policy talk sometimes it's just talk about values. and one of our favorite sayings is, our job is to guard against cynicism, particularly in this town. and i think it's important when it comes to dealing with issues of poverty for us to guard against cynicism, and not buy the idea that the poor will always be with us and there's nothing we can do -- because there's a lot we can do. the question is do we have the political will, the communal will to do something about it. mr. dionne: thank you, mr. president. i feel as a journalist maybe i'm the one representative of cynicism of you are -- up here. i want to go through the panel and come back to you, mr. president. i want to invite bob, and i'm going to encourage us to reach for solutions. but before we get there, i think it's important to say that your book, bob, your book, "our kids," is above all a moral call on the country to think about all the kids in the country who have been left out as our kids in some deep