historian doug brinkley and nia-malia henderson.turn, let me finish with how the president needs a mission, i believe, with how to get through this mess. jobs. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec-d®. powerful relief of nasal congestion and other allergy symptoms -- all in one pill. zyrtec-d®. at the pharmacy counter. we're not in london, are we? no. why? apparently my debit card is. what? i know. don't worry, we have cancelled your old card. great. thank you. in addition to us monitoring your accounts for unusual activity, you could also set up free account alerts. okay. [ female announcer ] at wells fargo we're working around the clock to help protect your money and financial i

doug brinkley, maly kai henderson, i'm going to give you both a chants to think big. nia, missed you lately. you've been doing other shows. seriously now, the president's two goals, defense and offense. does he start doing stuff and hope this other stuff will start rattling away from him or does he have to put out all these fires? does he have to deal with clarifying benghazi, putting the blame where it belongs and dealing with this whole question of the fbi going after a major news organization? does he have to do something else to put them in perspective? >> i think in many ways, he's got to do both. he's got to get out front in these scandals. show some leadership. have a buck stops here moment, but he's also got to do his day job. he's got a meeting with a turkish leader. he's going to go to baltimore and talk jobs, but until he's able to put a better framing around these scandals, it really threatened to engulf these next few weeks if not months. he's going to have trouble sort of setting the agenda. that's the problem. the president wants to be in a place where