i'm sure he'll do an excellent job for the president, but he did have another deputy, pete rouse, who was the interim chief of staff. maybe brianna can help us. do you know why the president didn't -- we know that bill daley represented jack lew, but what about pete rouse? why wasn't he promoted to the full-time chwhite house chief o staff? >> we don't know the answer to that, but one of the things we saw in november which sort of gave a sense that perhaps there was some issue with daley, and certainly that was not confirmed by any white house official, and they've pushed back on that, was when daley passed off some of his daily duties to ralph, and there was speculation what that meant for succession. but you heard the president saying when he asked daley, there was one clear choice, and that was jack lew. and certainly that an adi spoke with said, when it comes to lew, this is someone who has been in the dailies, his meetings with top aides at 7:30 in the morning and certainly clear with all the issues. >> final question, just wondering now that we're obviously covering, we're talki

the loyalty that people had to pete rouse, i don't know if that was a problem for bill daley. >> buty that michelle obama have trouble penetrating the men around the president. the new book that came out, certainly addresses conflicts between east wing and west wing not as grave as conflicts in the past. nancy reagan and hillary clinton and some of those west wing advisers, but there's a tight knit group, can anyone penetrate it? >> i have not read it, just heardç reporting about it. but i'll say there's natural tension between a east and west wing and considering the strong personalities that you had there people worked well there. any idea that the first lady could not penetrate the advisers is over stated. she was there, and you saw her in the west wing all the time. it was not that she was taking over policy debates but she was a constant there. >> there's a myth that there's a palace guard. that the president does not reach out enough. >> certainly not to people on the hill. >> he is not in over his head contrary to reports. but it's a legitimate criticism to say that he really

we knew he had a reduced role because pete rouse had gotten the day-to-day.ght in the middle of a campaign? >> this all happened over the holidays, i'm told. went home for the holidays. realized he didn't like living in washington, d.c. coming back, he thought, all right. i'm submitting my resignation. did it. the president tried to talk him out of it. i think partly out of -- they don't say this was the motivation. they didn't want this story out here. it looks bad for all the reasons we're talking about. it looks -- you throw in that book and it's a west wing not being well managed. but he had a reduced role. figure head's too strong of a word but certainly less than a powerful chief of staff. not a lot of business left to do with congress right now. it's literally just getting the rest of this payroll tax deal done. and i think he didn't look forward to the idea that he was just going to be a leader in name only. and -- why do that if you don't like living in washington in the first place. >> people want to know this. how does obama run this country? who r

think at this point, when you say who communicates with the rest of the government, i think it's pete rouse people i talked to today. not going to have any role on the campaign, which is unique for a chief of staff. >> who hires and fires for the white house in the name of the president? who says you have to go? who has that kind of power? i'm thinking of jim baker. >> sure. i would argue, from my feeling, that basically david pluf and bill daley were sort of working hand in hand. whether one was the "boss" over the other, i wouldn't make a distinction. but the two of them were supposed to be partners. >> a couple minutes on this. big story in "the new york times." a big book coming out tomorrow that talks about the dysfunction in the white house. a fight between the former chief of staff and the first lady. >> i haven't seen the fight, but i heard a lot about it from former white house staffers. it's certainly reigns true. one of things about bill daley, one thing he did well is on the first days, he called michelle obama to let her know he was there. but this is a well-known struggle. >>

they brought pete rouse back in. this was the gentleman that was the temporary chief of staff in between rahm emanuel and bill daley and at this point when bill daley went home for the holidays in chicago, he came back and said, you know, decided he'd rather be in chicago. he has more limited duties. they're not doing as much with congress. he's not playing a huge role in the campaign. and so he offered his resignation. they tried to talk him out of it because the white house didn't want this public. it makes it look like it's a west wing. that is kind of in a little bit of turmoil particularly with the new book that's come out. so the timing stinks for them in their minds but daley seemed to insist on it since he was living temporarily in d.c. and wanted to go back to chicago. >> the big show of course is the republicans' side of politics right now. we have new hampshire coming up next tomorrow. how important is new hampshire in this campaign at this point and does it look like it's going to be romney? >> well, look

surprise because he did give over some of his responsibilities as white house chief of staff to pete rousecomplete surprise. i think there are some stylish use, some substantive issues. one thing i'll be looking forward to, learning very soon, and i suspect we will, whether bill daley was completely comfortable with some of the sort of efforts by the president in recent weeks to really go back and energize that democratic party base, what the democrats call this class warfare. let's work things out, we don't have to get in fights all the time, try to work with republicans. there may have been an issue there because the president sort of poking the eye of the house and senate the last few weeks. i'm not sure bill daley always felt so comfortable with that, but do you understand what i mean? >> i understand what you mean. we'll go to the white house in a few minutes. and brianna keilar, what do you know about what the president will be saying? >> they expect to talk about bill daley stepping down and the accomplishments of jack lew and the role he will serve as chief of staff. you heard wolf

we should be fair and say that pete rouse was only on the job as interim chief of staff after rahm emanuelnonetheless was in that job so he's had three or four if you include emanuel, rouse, daley and now jack lew. that's a big turnover, even in a back breaking job. jenna: a meeting between two of the most notorious dictators in the world is looking like a full-on tour of the tyrants and why their jokes are falling on deaf ears. >>> we have brand new video out of syria as well, the violence seems to get worse by the day. what's being done to stop it? a live report, coming up. [ male announcer ] drinking a smoothie with no vegetable nutrition? ♪ [ gong ] strawberry banana! [ male announcer ] for a smoothie with real fruit plus veggie nutrition new v8 v-fusion smoothie. could've had a v8. what is thishorty? uh, tissues si i'm sick. you don't cough, you d't show defeat. give me your war face! raaah! [ male announcer ] halls. a pep talk in every drop. jon: new video crosser our international desk as bloody crackdown continues in syria. take a look. it's amateur video, hard to get out of syria