joining us now is "the new york times" white house correspondent peter baker.ks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to talk about the inaction. we look at what's happened, the video footage from what is presumed to be a chemical attack in syria is devastating. and yet, we seem to be sitting on our hands. to some degree that seems to be due to intransigence on the part of the russians and chinese. i wonder how much you think the current stalemate between the u.s. and russians and russia and the international community is affecting u.n. security council action. >> well, it is, obviously. this has been a sore point between the united states and russia for quite a while. the syria situation is looked at differently in moscow than it is in washington. bashar al assad's government has every right to defend itself against the rebels who are attacking. so you see a different attitude there on vladimir putin's government when they hear reports of attacks by chemical weapons, they're just as likely to blame them on the rebels than they are on the governmen

covering the week, peter baker times," johnork harwood of cnbc and the "new and indira , lakshmanan of bloomberg news. reporting andng itlysis, covering history as happens, live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill. corporate funding for provided byweek" is -- >> we went out and asked people question, how old is the oldest person you've known? and hadpeople a sticker them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90's. even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed, the official retirement age. the question is, how do you make money you needhe to enjoy all of these years? fordditional funding "washington week" is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public and bysting contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. people say august is a slow news month. tell that to the secretary of state or the prime minister of great britain or the of syria or the president of the united states who is now making

peter, paul and mary. celebrities, jackie robinson, paul newman, josephine baker, sidney poitier, lena horne, ossie davis and ruby dee, charlton heston, sammy davis, jr., marlon brando. the celebrities were everywhere. but what seemed to have gripped you as you spoke, and as you've written and talked about, in a sense, was those thousands upon thousands of nameless, ordinary people who were out there. >> it was unreal, unbelievable. when i got up to speak, i could see the people, the young people. i can see those middle aged and older people. i can see some members of congress down near the foot of the podium. it was a sea of humanity. >> were you intimidated? you were only 23. you had only been head of sncc, the student nonviolent coordinating committee, for what, a few weeks? >> only a few weeks. and my first responsibility was to travel to washington. we had a meeting with president kennedy in the oval office of the white house. and we told him we were going to march on washington. you know, president kennedy didn't like the idea of hundreds and thousands of people coming to washington. and he said to mr.

peter birgen writing at cnn.com. whoever prevails is hardly going to be an ally of the u.s. it's an ungodly mess. in short, a problem from hell. on that note, let me introduce mike baker.nt, "time magazine" editor at large and gloria borger. mike, i want to start with you. one of the things we're waiting for before president obama makes his final decision is this intelligence assessment. how quickly are we expecting this. is this something that's perfunctory or does this at this point lead his decision making? >> well, hopefully it will lead the decision making. it's separate from the u.n. investigative team's efforts. if i'm smiling, it's only because i can't imagine anything more feckless on the ground than a u.n. security investigations team. the intell is important. i'm hard-pressed to see how they have any other options at this stage. when you use the words undeniable evidence and no doubt and you combine it with red line and moral obscenity, you have no place to go other than to push the button for the cruz missiles. they have to take a measured response and so like a lot of things, there's not a lot of options on the decision tree. i think what they're doing now