Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20140129

ni tonight, lets declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty. Rose welcome to the program. We are thrive evening from new york, boston and boynton beach, florida, tonight president obama delivered his fifth state of the union address, the speech comes at a critical moment for the president , he voter approval is among the lowerest it has, congress is opposed to much of his agenda and public attention is beginning to wander to midterm elections and beyond this was the president s opportunity to seize back the initiative, to do so he hit on themes that he hoped would resonate with the american people. Rn what i offer tonight is concrete practical promise pals to speed up growth, and new ladders of opportunity into the middle class. Some require congressional action. And i am eager to work with all of you. But america does not stand still and neither will i, so wherever and whenever i can take stems without legislation to expand opportunity for more american families, that is what i am going to do. The shift, the shift to a cleaner Energy Economy wont happen overnight and it will require some tough choices along the way. But the debate is subtle. Climate change is a fact and when our childrens children look up in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer more stable world with new sources of energy i want us to be able to say, yes, we did. If we are serious about Economic Growth it is time to heed the call of Business Leaders, labor leaders, faith leaders, law enforcement, and fix our broken immigration system. It is time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a mad men episode. This year, lets all come together, congress, the white house, businesses from wall street to main street, to give every woman the opportunity she deserves, because i believe when women succeed, america succeeds. Rose joining me now from president clintons treasury secretary and top Economic Advisor, from a few minutes from boynton beach, florida, Doris Kearns Goodwin, with me in new york, glen hubbard of columbia university, he served as a top Economic Advisor to both bush president s, al hunt of Bloomberg News and fallow of the atlantic, Mark Halperin will join us shortly, i am glad to have all of them this evening let me go around at this table imagined in the remote locations and get an assessment, al. I would give him an a or at least an a minus, i thought the context in which he was speaking but not a good one for him, a dreadful 2013, his job Approval Ratings are down, political polarization, and yet he weaved together, i thought some quite different messages tonight, he roused the faithful with a minimum wage, women, pay equity but he didnt cut off any opportunities and he held out some branches to glen hubbard on the earned income tax credit and two things that really struck me, charlie were on immigration, one paragraph, that was all, and because he knows there is a chance to get that done and he didnt want to antagonize republicans who are trying to make it happen and on the economic populism, it was not as many had forecast a really red meat, you know, income inequality, it was really much more measured than that, it wasnt what republicans wouldy ending which i dont know if you guys did but i teard up when i saw that sergeant up there, one of the most powerful stories i have ever seen. That hand, charlie, i thought he really played it superbly. And it wasnt the Great Society or for freedom, it wasnt a seminal moment but it was well done. I agree with al the president did what he needed to do, framing his agenda and i think he gave a very good speech with very good moments, still on the economics, though, the president said very little about how he would actually create work, how he would help prepare people fork war and support work, the things liked the earned Income Credit are good things, he hadnt about the much about it before, his own opposition to tax reform has blocked that, some interesting ideas like the any ire remarks i am not sure what it is but certainly very intriguing new idea, interesting to talk about but in terms of economics i would say not many big themes, circle back to the recovery uh but nothing a lot new. I thought it was also a good speech, state of the union are never that coherent as a pieces of rhetoric because they have to bring in 25 different themes but compared most of the night it was a very coherent theme which was quite striking, the theme is things are Getting Better and not usually a theme in american discourse is say things are Getting Better dont get in the way, that was impressive to me, i thought you could almost say his tone was reagan everything,esque, mean confident in american disrals and seeming to have, this clips we showed were the hard edge point but a more easy going manner with boehner and joking about his congressional opponents, i thought that sort of confident bearing also i thought it was interesting that several times in the last half of the speech he was calling on Business Leaders to do things voluntarily, give america a raise, not sayingly use this regulation and that regulation but i am calling on you as Business Leaders of america to take these steps. Rose Larry Summers in boston. I thought it was a good speech. The president found, i thought, just the right line on inclusive prosperity. He recognized that we werent going to succeed in doing anything if we didnt grow this economy faster than we have, and proposed a great deal to do that. At the same time, he recognized that issues of fairness and opportunity had to be very important after a period when a disproportionate share of the gains have gone to a very small frac shun of the population. But he spoke about those issues without invoking the politics of envy and spoke about those issues in a way that wasnt explicitly redistributionist, i think he will find the economic issue Going Forward just the right progressive place, and while there wasnt a big overarching policy in the speech, if all the things he described happened, childhood, Early Childhood education, Immigration Reform, significantly increased public investment, tax reform that brings corporate money home from abroad, and much more, if all that happened, the growth rate in the United States would get faster, we would have tens of thousands of more people each month getting jobs and it would make a very, very big difference, so i give the president high marks for talking about Economic Issues in a very thoughtful way and i thought he also did a very good job of wrapping it in a rubric of american americas role in the world, a sense that america is an exceptional country, a sense that the best days can be in in the future, it was a positive speech and i think he is entitled to that as he looks towards the year when qui4 likely Economic Growth will accelerate. Rose okay. Let me come to what has been advertised all week. This is a president is prepared to use executive orders. What can he do there and do you have a deeper understanding of how much that can contribute to the overall goals of the add straiks. Well, i would probably defer to all three of my colleagues on some of this, i think it is pretty small ball, i it is symbolically important, at least when it comes to the economy and jobs there is not much you can do, he can give a minimum wage to federal workers, getting new contracts i mean there is some Food Service Workers it doesnt affect very many people. Rose congress and some environmental things that are important and public lands things that are important but it doesnt have much to do with Economic Growth the things you others were talking about. I agree. He keyed it off to show he is prepared to act but there is not a lot there. Rose he can take action to right. He could do things to engage the congress on tax reform issues larry raised but some of the rhetoric around the edges frustrates that, i dont think he is getting any far. You know, al, you and charlie, dab. Rose larry, one thing, let me get jim, this thought. Yes, recognizing he is beginning the sixth year of his presidency and probably the last year he has much effective level so he cant pretend there is a whole new agenda to put forward so he stressed the healthcare care plan protecting people and the person in the audience if you got stick a week earlier she would have been bankrupted and so i think he is trying to make the best case for the things he can do himself but nudge the congress towards, again calling on americans as a private community, and employers to do things he thinks they should do. Rose larry. I think two things. First, big things sometimes happen in this country without huge pieces of legislation and the president s, president is right to invoke that, we are getting the president touched on this but i dont think he highlighted it as importantly as i think historians are going to look back at it. We are on the road to energy independence. By 2020 north america is going to be an Energy Exporter that is a huge source of job creation, that is a change in the geopolitical environment, and it is something that happened through a combination of public action, private initiative, the technology, the president talked about. The healthcare cost curve which looked intractable a generation ago, looked intractable five years ago now appears to have shifted and bent quite substantially. That is taking a trillion dollars on the ten year budget forecast that i would bess it is going to take more off when those forecasts are next recalculated. Some of that is obamacare. Some of that comes simply from a greater focus on healthcare, so big things happen, not just through big laws. They happen through focus, they happen through a combination of initiative that the government and private sector level and i think the president was right to invoke that. I also heard one specific that the president i think touched on twice that could be a big deal. He talked about accelerated permitting and accelerated review, to facility infrastructure investments, to facilitate other investments. That in sectors ranging from power to roads could be a very big deal and could be something that has a substantial effect on business confidence, and that is something where executive discretion is really where it is, and can make a big difference, and thexd idea that things shouldnt be mired in bureaucratic delay for years and years, that is something on which i suspect there will be substantial bipartisanso i thine more promise there in the executive actions that were discussed and that approach to governance that my colleagues on the panel here. Rose okay. Glen is going to respond to that but Mark Halperin joined us. Thank you, sir. Rose before glen responds your assessment on this speech. More engaged and energized than i thought he would be, sometimes he has trouble when it looks like things are tough to unstick, he size away for performance for performance steak but he shows he has done it so i thought his energy was really good and i thought his arguments were pretty clear. I dont always like to compare him to clinton but bill clinton was the master of explaining our economic predicament showing he understood it and adding prescriptions to it and i thought he dead as well as i have seen him do on that score and he reached out on some issues i thought was very strong on healthcare and confrontation and very strong on immigration. Rose Doris Kearns Goodwin, can you hear me in boynton beach, florida . Yes you can. Most definitely. Rose your assessment of the speech . I thought the most important thing was that he did show vitality and animation and that he was still president. Against the caricatures of people thinking he was already halfway out and i think that is so important for him leadership, it is important for his democratic followers and the people who are going to be running in the mid terms, as important, though, is, as everything he said was the way he projected himself tonight and i thought it was as good as i have seen him in a long time, he wove in a laundry list that didnt seem like a laundry list because they had a theam about more access for Economic Opportunity for people and of course the symbolism at the end just made you feel like he is right, america has gone through troubles before, we have made mistakes, we have stumbled but just like that wonderful young soldier if you put your collective shoulder do the wheel whatever that metaphor is you really can move forward. So i think it worked. I think he was forceful without being combat if the that he didnt say a lot of things that are going to make the republicans really, really mad but gave some of the things out to the people who needed it on immigration and on the Government Shutdown and the executive orders are something that all president s have done, it is not to say it is king like that you are using executive orders, Teddy Roosevelt did it, jfk did wit housing they all need to act when they cant get any other way to act and it is part of the power of the presidency he is trying to use right now. Let me just show now because i know people have mentioned it, this is sergeant recommends burgh who was standing and sitting next to the first lady and the president at the end of the speech recognized him and for his spirit and for his service and for the fact he didnt quit. Here is that clip. Let me tell you about one of those families i have come to know. I first met cory rims burgh, a proud army ranger at omaha beach on the 65th anniversary of dday. Along with some of his fellow rangers he walked me through the program of ceremony, he was a strong impressive young man, had an easy manner, sharp as a tack. And we joked around and took pictures and i told him to stay in touch. A few months later, on his tenth deployment cory was nearly killed by a massive roadside bomb in afghanistan. His comrades found him in a canal face down under water, shrapnel in his brain. For months he lay in a coma. The next time i met him in the hospital, he couldnt speak. He could barely move. Over the years, he has endured dozens of surgeries and procedures, ours, hours of grueling rehab every day. Even now cory is still blind in one eye. Still struggles on his left side. But slowly steadily with the support of caregivers like his dad craig and the Community Around him, cory has grown stronger, day by day, he has learned to speak again and stand again and walk again. He is workinho toward the day when he can serve his country again. My recovery has not been easy, he says, nothing in life that is worth anything is easy. Cory is here tonight and like the army he loves, like the america he serves, Sergeant First Class cory rims burgh never gives up and he does not quit. [ applause ] rose my guess is that is what will be remembered by the state of the union. Definitely, definitely. Rose and handled with grace, at the same time a powerful image of this young man and at the same time the theme of his life, never giving up, fighting back, and a sense of which was what the president had been saying in part was necessary. Let me register a modest dissent here. Rose okay. About this the end okay the ending of the speech. The heroism of that young man, nobody can say enough about his tenth deployment i have no doubt his successor, like president bush is torn up by the men he sends in harms way there is something a little uncomfortable about a nation that is generally not involved in these wars at all, just having the ceremony of rolling out somebody who has been suffered so badly and i so i thought it was enormously powerful and it doesnt necessarily Say Something good about the country as a whole. It lets you remind you of the fact that the country has not, in fact, as large, at large, it is the families who have had someone in harms way that have suffered, you know, while the country at large didnt suffer. It reminds you of that. I thought it was the most powerful moment i can remember seeing but i think jim has a valid point. There was a book written by i forget, andrew we go to fenway park and we bring out these great heroes and we connect them back to people and then you know what . When the first pitch is thrown out we forget about it and i do think, i dont blame obama at all because i thought it was a powerful wonderful moment and Doris Kearns Goodwin it is a metaphor we can com come back ae strong but as a societal question you hear from obama he deals with these people and from bush for the rest of us most people are not involved. But i think that is why it is important that he said, well the other line he said in Foreign Policy which could well become importance at some point is that will not extend troops into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary and some of the people in this country feel some of the places we have been of recent times have not been absolutely necessary and thats the kind of line that could be a standard for him when he is being pushed or somebody wants him to go into some other place right now and that fits very well, i think, with the fact we have to understand the impact that these wars have on the soldiers coming home and theaeb are hundreds and thousands like that young man because luckily we can keep people alive but at a terrible cost and we need to remember what it is like. Rose all right. What i want to talk about is Foreign Policy as well because it seemed in some state of the union there has not been a lot devoted to Foreign Policy and here the president did talk about Foreign Policy and in that instance he did. But but let me stay with the economic. There is a lot of talk and i want glen and larry to speak to this especially, about income inequality. And there is also the risk of people criticizing it because they talk about class warfare. How did the president and did he say enough about income inequality in your judgment, glen, and did he express it wealth and is he on the right track . I think he did it much better tonight than he has. There are two topics. One is inequality of out comes, which is what people generally think of as inequality and then there is he equality of opportunity. Economic mobility in a society thad had a lot of economic mobility that out comes are unequal is not a big deal, we had recent evidence suggesting that while mobility mobility is not getting worse it is not Getting Better and it is something we need to lean against and i think the president is right to highlight it as an issue. I just dont think the policies he is pursuing have much to do with mobility. I fail to see why a higher minimum wage or extending Unemployment Benefits has much to do with that, but i give him credit for raising the issue. Rose but that goes to the heart of it doesnt it, larry, Unemployment Benefits and raising the minimum wage are the two primary as false other than growth that the president has, larry . Well, charlie, i think it is a lot more he has those things and i actually do thinkni they make if a big difference, i think it makes a big difference that we do overtime and education and i think that is what the president emphasized i think it makes a huge difference in what we do in retraining and training workers. This has to be the first time that training and the transition between jobs has been el i haved to an issue where the Vice President is given major responsibility. The president touched on the questions of the tax code and bringing that money home. The basic research the president was talking about was not an abstraction but was a contribution to strengthening the economy. So actually i thought he had a lot to say about policies that would create an inclusive prosperity and thats what i think is really important. I also think and this wasnt something the president talked about that research that has been written up in the New York Times and other places by my harvard colleague rash ched difficult has a place, stunning demonstration that these patterns of mobility and immobility are not the same all over the country. That in some cities and states there is actually tremendous mobility and in others there is very little mobility. And the geographic pattern is pretty interesting. Because if you look at chedis map, it is red states where there is very little opportunity that the chances that a kid born in the lowest fifth of the Income Distribution will get to the top fifth of the Income Distribution are almost 50 percent lower in many of the states of the deep south than they are in new england or in the upper midwest or in large parts of california. So i think we are seeing an increasing body of evidence that suggests that a commitment to public responsibility for creating opportunity where it is more present than in the parts of the country where there is a greater values commitment to that really make a difference. Rose let me bring glen back in. I think it is important, larry identifies great topics but i think it is important to go from checking the boxes to get something done so i was quite skeptical of the Vice President chairing a training review. We have way too much Training Programs if we know economists have been very critical. The evidence is quite skeptical from most economists and a bolder reform would actually be getting these moneys to individuals in the state and on tax reform the president has himself consistently frustrated Corporate Tax reform by holding it hostage to raising individual tax rates. So while these are interesting subjects and i agree they are important but president s leadership is just not there. Rose they are holding it hostage to the limitation of deductions. And the business taxes rose . That he can make separate tax reform, he has. No but you cant do that al but broadening the base you have raised taxes on individuals. You cant do it it is harder but you can do it, you do it. There is no reason why there is no reason why you cant do Corporate Tax reform on its own. The president does think you have to do a lot of things about Corporate Tax shelters that many in the Business Community dont like, but, look, the way to frame that issue is to recognize that the foreign places where american corporations get the greatest profits arent china or japan or germany or any of the big countries, they are places like the netherlands, ireland, and the Cayman Island that are really tax havens. Rose exactly. Doris you wanted to say . Yes, what i wanted to say i think even by defining this issue as the most important or one of the most important issues of our age that is an important thing, maybe because the mobility, the lack of mobility undermines the whole promise of what america stood for in the first place and he talked about that and we really believed that if you came here and you used discipline and your talents were exercised to their fullest you really could move up that ladder, and the fact that for so many people born in the lower fifth they are not going to get out of that, thats a terrible scar on what america is. The problem is, and i think you have to remind people that we did have a giant middle class after world war two, it is like we know in the turn of the 20th century we had a gap between the rich and poor, we have it now, it seemed inevitable but there is a reason it is there, the manufacturer base, unions were stronger and Government Programs that helped and there was bases here and some of that has to be talked about to figure out what can we really do to bring that back, it is tough and almost seems difficult to deal with but it can be dealt request as human problems as fdr said they are created by men and ca can be sod by men and women, of course. There was a charming charming way the american president made a promise about the american promise, where a son of a bar chief can be speaker of the house and the whole house stood up. And you have to smile. Exactly and better that boehner and there is part of the logical presentation saying things are Getting Better america is prevailing and this ising in that will keep us from fulfilling rose and we must not forget the belief we had that made us great in the first place, the optimism. I think the president did a good job too in asking republicans to say what they are for. He did it in the context of healthcare or actually republicans go have a lot of plans, but frank he on mobility, republicans need to be much bolder here in their own proposals, you have seen some of that from rubio and Congress Ryan but the president is right you have to tell us what you are for. Other conservatives have highlighted on twitter already and it is a huge thing, this speech on the issue. Rose great point. This speech reflects the realities of the balance of the president s term and opportunities key to all of them, with one is we are going to be a nation at war during his entire presidency, two, republicans are going to control and maybe the, the house and maybe the senate and even the best case more the economy people are going to be hurting and large numbers of people on food stamps and large numbers of families struggling to pay for college and large numbers of people working in jobs that keep them below the poverty line all of those realities come together if you can switch to talking about opportunity, and you can maybe find common cause, he sat with paul ryan for 20 minutes and can come up with an opportunity agenda they could both agree on thats what the balance of the hope of the balance of his term on these realities. The president did talk a great deal about proposals he made last rear yao and there is a good reason he did that he offered 41 proposals in 2013 state of the union and congress enacted two, the debt ceiling extension and violence against women, and so he had to, you know bring them up again, but and the conventional wisdom gom is, boy if it was bad last year it will be who worse in election year, i dont think that is necessarily true, Ronald Reagan got through tax reform and we talked earlier about game,. I wouldnt bet on it but i thik there is a 40 percent chance that maybe great build could pass on issues like Early Childhood education, he and paul ryan absolutely could cut a deal some time this year, i think itc, it is not huge stuff, but i think you could have a much more product ukt if the rose what is the deal that could be cut on immigration . Havent brought that up yet what a term in citizenship versus legal status . Well you have to have legalization to start with, you can get citizenship from the dream work for kids and the democrats will only buy off if you tweak it so you get citizenship for a large number of those people who are legalized and it gets complicated but you are not rose where is the Common Ground . Well, boehner is working hard in trying to get a Common Ground, he hired john mccains immigration person and really trying to force his caucus, which is not an easy thing to do, to pass an immigration bill which they then can go to conference with in and the senate eventually. And in the week or so they teased this out there has been ferocious reaction from some republican strategists like bill crystal says this is a horrible thing to do i in amid term where he can pick up lots of cease in cantiimmigration, but i have been surprised at how relatively muted those voices have been and the Republican Leadership has shown no signs of backing down. Rose but the Election Results and demographics. It is po not just that, the Business Community wants it and it is good public policy. It is good policy public to do this. And john boehner does not want to go down in history as the guy who blocked Immigration Reform. And people say it is going to be next year. I think it is this year or nothing. The fact is if harry reid wants this done and is willing to compromise a little bit on the path to citizenship, i think you are jumping ahead. Nancy pelosicks the key first because they need democratic votes and they have got to go far must have i free. Rose where do they have to go to get her . Not just legalization that is not sufficient to have a two tier system, you know, in perpetuity but create some kind of citizenship for at least a sizable number of those undocumented. Agricultural interests in her state will force her to do it, not some rose so if the president should get Immigration Reform and the healthcare, whatever state that is in, what does that say about his legacy . It says that he i remember interviewing treasury secretary summers and the things, and then Economic Advisors summers about the things that would make a difference, and a cheeflg healthcare reform as embattled as it is right now, i member one of your mentor, bill moyers used to say, he talked about how when medicare passed in 1965 that was more e embattled than this and johnson had a sense if he got that in and stayed policy for a couple of years then everybody would assume it would be that way forever. In terms of domestic policy the healthcare bill is the most important thing, of course avoiding the carnage of the great recession. He has brought troops back from these two wars that have been going on for nearly a decked and as he argued many things in the texture of American Life are improving so i think that is the case he would make. Rose doris, i think the president said to you he wants to make a difference way back when he was first running in 2007 they he wanted to be a president that made a difference, he didnt want to be another photograph on the wall, another portrait on the wall. What does he have to do to have become that kind of president . Well, i think it is the right impulse, first of all, you dont want a president to be dreaming of becoming Millard Philmore or franklin pierce, so i mean that is what he was talking about, when you have that power you want to use it to make lives better for people and i think i agree with what was just said, i think the healthcare law will be like if it gets put in place and things work well with it, it will be like Social Security was, it will be like medicare was, so it is moments that historians look back upon that really change the course of peoples lives. The economy has recovered under his watch, as was just said, wars have come to an end under his watch and if you can add on to that Immigration Reform, which is reform for the future i think he is pretty well situated for the future and certainly wont be Millard Philmore. Rose larry, in terms of this president that you worked for early in his presidency, what makes what makes the presidency for him . Look, i think healthcare will be the most important legislative achievement in 40 years if this all works, and i think the odds are that it will work, and while there have been a set of negative surprises on the implementation which obviously has been a mess, there has also been a Huge Positive surprise on what was the biggest concern, which is the growth of healthcare costs in the country. Dont forget that the that he is not just saved us from depression, but the dodd frank legisg; 9 is probably the most important bit of Regulatory Reform since the Second World War in the whole in the whole financial area. Dont forget also that president s get credit for what they preside over, and what happened in the energy area is, as i was saying before,ni immen. Every president since Richard Nixon has vowed u. S. Energy independence, and basically that is going to happen during president obamas watch. The country has changed, the country is in a completely different place on gay marriage than it was when president obama took office. My guess is that we are seeing a sea change. You saw the reaction on women in women in the workplace so i think there is a great deal that will be part of his legacy. We have to say too he is nonwhite president who was reelected and what that means for the country is also and just a part of the legacy we cant ignore. Rose . On healthcare this year will bring two reckoning, no matter how well it goes on the implementations there are losers on this and the president wasnt clear with people on passage or during the reelection about that and the stories of people who are losers on this in a variety of ways are going to get a lot of attention as they should and the second thing is the mid determines, if the mid terms are a referendum on the president and obamacare, aism if it goes well for the next few months Public Opinion wont catch up on that and it is harder to argue it is a success in innovative republicans take back control of the senate. I would argue we are grading a bit on a curve onthis will bei also think you have to be careful with the argument we have suddenly seen a decline in healthcare costs we dont know there is a lot of uncertain at this about the longterm forecasts, in terms of the recovery i think the Federal Reserve frankly deserves a whole lot more credit than the obama administration, dodd frank i think has some positives but to my mind certainly hasnt put us in a safe spot and on energy that larry mentioned a couple of times i agree 100 percent this is important, but this administration has frustrated the development of americas new emergency assets. Rose but it happened on his watc wachovia of when it rey came on stream and he will get credit, will he not . Well, and each day. They grade on a curve atnr columbia. Go to business school. Eight years is a long enough time yo you can say the sun rose but one term recovery, the first george bush was unfairly caught by the timing of an economic cycle, but when you are right there eight years, the position of the world better or worse, the energy progress, the Technological Progress all of these things it is interesting the only mention of this china was essentially saying people used to think china was so great and now they think this is the place to invest, which was interesting in itself. To mention of russia. Yes. And then i mean the relationship with russia was not mentioned i thought that was a little and the most forceful was when he said i would new sanctions. That was the most forceful moment and unusual for a president rather than relying on his staff to say we would recommend to be clear about a veto but also to celebrate and to champion diplomacy and talk about the role diplomacy played, not just the sanctions but also diplomacy but is a calling card for this president s view of the world and how to change things and his iran policy is, as the poll suggests is not particularly popular, i suggest that frustrates him a little bit but he has a honest to have a real breakthrough. You are much more than a poll expert than i am but everything i have seen suggest they are wary of another confrontation with iran i thought it was rose give diplomacy a chance. Yes. He said he would have the veto threat and made a positive case for iran that if it can be brought back from this 3535 year estrangeful that is a real step for the world. There is also this question. This president made several evans are references to his war on the, war history and you serve your time and almost as if he is part of a moment in history when they are defining limits as to what can happen during this time, partly because of differences he had with congress and also partly because the world has been changing. And do we have any sense of his own frame of mind, mark . He is more optimistic than a lot of people around him. I hear that all the time from people who say, well, you know, we present him how this is going to go and he bucks us up a little bit and thinks it is possible to pick things up and he is very cog an cognizant of e legacy issues, immigration being a big one, very hard to see him getting the kind of Climate Change legislation under any circumstances. Rose and looking to executive. Not enough to fundamentally save the planet as he promised to do. Rose over. And i think the part of why the speech was so good, i think, is because when he writes it in his voice and thinks about what he wants to say i think this is the closest he has gotten in any speech i have heard to a theory of the case about how to meet the challenge of all the technological changes and do it in a bipartisan way, bipartisan way, republicans didnt love a lot of the things about the speech, they cherry picked what they loved, but he has to deal with republicans for the last two years i dont think it is sort of the null set of accomplishments, the people have said i think there are ways for him to revitalize his presidency if he does have a bad midterm. I thought also if he did revitalize, i think re, he revitalized it tonight. Rose he did revitalize his presidency tonight by, in your own words . Doris . I think by promising a sense of leadership and strength and will and desire and vitality becausbecause we have been sayio many people have been saying he is not there anymore, where he is he . The shrinking president he was anything but that tonight and i think the important thing as difficult as a second term is for president s they all get into trouble, without a second term very few of them are remembered by history. So that is what you have not, that eight year span as somebody said before, Foreign Policy, some huge things could happen in the next 18, 24 months, so he is still there, i think that is really important to know. Rose larry . I think he showed himself to be a strong optimistic leader and he has got a record of significant legislative actions that stacks up pretty well even against the rest of the two term president s since the second world Second World War. Everybody in in conversation is focusing on the midterm elections and what he will or will not be able to do. Rose no they are not, larry. Not the midterm elections but what he is going to be ableni to do with congress and that isni hugely important i was going to make the point that doris touched on a moment ago. My guess is that in terms of how he is remembered in history, what happens with respect to iran in the next two years and what happens in north asia where the situation between china and japan is very complex, where chinas evolution is uncertain, as a rising power, that those events where he obviously is not in control, because it obviously depends critically on choices that other countries make and how the United States responds and that is clearly up to the president , largely, not the congress, is going to have a great deal to do with how he is remembered by history, but he has got a very strong base with what happened in healthcare and with an economic recovery that isnt as strong as we would like it to be, but is very different than the depression that looked like a possibility on the day he came into office. I think with iran there is the potential for a smaller scale version of nixon in china in terms of an achievement that really does improve things in the entire world if they can make in happen, there is also the second thing is, outside of this ambition this sentence is like the obama of 2008 with the afghan war ending this needs to be the Year Congress lifts the restricting, the existing restrictions on Guantanamo Bay that is sort of saying we are still going to try this. Rose go ahead. I was going to say, a lot of what you saw tonight is 2008 in terms of emphasis and also style. He is a kohn genial fighter. Congenial, but fighter he is not seen ready to fight for the balance of his term. Rose engaged but not angry. Congenial, genial fighter. The president did a great job in all of these respects of laying out the themes and being a genial fighter but nobody suggest the implementation is going to improve it is not 2008 it is 2014 and we havent really had a solid rose what does he bring, al . I was going to say me talking about his historical legacy with Doris Kearns Goodwin is like going one on one with kevin duran, it is hardly fair. Go ahead. George w. Bushs legacy if he were to rewrite the magn magna , magna carta it would not overturn iraq. A five years from now is medicare as doris alluded to earlier and if he gets something in iran as i didnt mean said boy he is going to be some kind of those are two extraordinary accomplishments. I hope doris approves of that. I completely approve. You have done great a genial fighter, a brilliant term. That was halperin. I said they was reaganesque earlier on. Rose so how are democrats going to react to this speech . They loved it. Rose . They loved it. I am not going to mince mince words. But they want to be they want to have common cause in year and al mentioned nancy pelosi on immigration, there are a number of things where democrats are going to have to be willing to be put towards the center, led by the president and i think the relations have gotten better and this speech, there is almost nothing in that speech they wont like. Almost nothing, you saw it in the hall, the they were wildly enthusiastic and the republicans had a woman do the response but the president s speech in its symbolism and emphasis on the issues, on the examples of the first lady and the first ladyco spot, heavily know foe focused on women, not just for electorial politics. Not just for electorial politics. Rose gm. Not just because the elections, but because their strength and policy arguments in washington involve having the republicans scared out of their minds about losing women for another generation. Rose another issue comes up at this stage in a presidency is the country listening . Is the country wanting . Is there a sense of the president can resonate, that he hasnt lost the attention of the country . You have got to believe that it is true that he hasnt. I mean, it is important for the country with you are for him or in the that you listen to a leader on a flight like this, i may be oldfashioned but there is something about the pageantry and the ritual, watching all of those characters march down the aisle and a sense of oneness that this is the one moment a president has that the platform that no other leader in the country has, and you use it well and he did as well as he could using that plal form and you have to be maybe the numbers will be down, i dont care what they say it matters, it matters and you have to hope it matters. More than almost any other political figure of our time obama has a track record of reestablishing himself with big speeches, from 2 thunde 2004 toe speech i say the isla islamic wd when the Healthcare Plan seemed dead he had a joint speech that was was effective and this is in his track record. There are probably about 30 Million People watched tonight that is half as many that watched bill clinton 20 years ago but 20 years ago we didnt have google, we didnt have twitter, w we didnt have linked in, get flicks, people understand, communicate, get involved, get breasted in different ways than they did before so some of our conventional measurements arent really as accurate as they might appear, charles. Rose what surprises might we expect from this president for the next three years . I will say one surprise we already have machine is inside baseball but, some of the white house changes he has made just in the last couple of weeks, bringing in john podesta. Turned out to be a much water chief of staff than i expected a woman named katie this is all inside baseball. Rose what does that represent. It represents a president not quite as ins sthrar as he was for, insular for much of his first term. Slightly less insular. You know, an expected surprise is a channel but as i say he may have signaled that both of our previous both president reagan and president george w. Bush this their final two years you could see them withdrawing from the job, i thought and so if obama is signaling he is viewing this last time as where he is going to be more engaged, find better ways to communicate with the abandon rose the thing pointed to most often, doris, you take away from this more than anything else he has revitalized with this speech his presidency and found his footing and found if not his theory of the case found the narrative again . And if that is true, you know, then one of the reasons i think the democrats love this speech is they want their leader to be their leader and i think there was a sense of his leading them and leading the country and as was said in a forceful way but not combat if the, this was the voice that i think is most authentic to him and the one he started out with a long time ago and then all the context made things difficult but now it is back and there is still time, you know, i mean, it sales like we are right on the top of the next election but that is our fault because we talked about it already, 2016 is a long time away. I mean the real surprise i think is good for him and certainly good for the country would be bipartisan action on opportunity. So if he can find two or three years where there is bipartisan agreement and lead those. Rose fertile area probably. It is actually but both sides have to stop talk about their favorite policies for the last 25 years and start thinking more freshly, he led that conversation i think it is good for him and certainly good for the country. But also the republicans have to change their policy of defining success as thwarting him. Correct. Thats what they are for. Rose and what is the likelihood of that . Who knows. What is the likelihood of that . Permission from larry to mention the mid terms because the problem is, the conception of immigration. Rose now we mention it. The conception of immigration there is very little that they can do and particularly if they do probation they dont want to have 2014 mid terms be the year where the obama presidency, obamas washington work, that runs exactly counter to the message they want to run on, i believe that it would be difficult for the white house to get a lot of accomplishment this is year except, again, with immigration i am a little more skeptical than al is in terms of 40 percent but he has to be, just has to be based on the math of the house more of a centrist. We have four minutes left here, larry, much was said almost leading up to the state of the union about how the White House Team looked at 2013 as such a terrible year and felt like they really needed to have a theory of the case, and felt like they needed to revitalize the president and needed to make this an action year. Can you speak the that . I mean you know and you still have contacts there at the white house in terms of how they look and i assume they call on you in a sense for counsel, about big themes. Look, they had a tough they had a tough 2013, both in political terms, in domestic policy terms, in Foreign Policy terms, that i think there was a strong sense on the part of the president and everyone else that they needed to turn the page on that and i think there have been some important personnel changes. Ing in the white house, but much more important is that the president was positive, he was not bitter and chastising. He was embracing the idea of progress that wasnt just through the passage of laws in his discussion on a number of issues, or partnerships with business i think he was also laying the groundwork for his being a strong leader Going Forward, because i think he senses after five years in the presidency that there will be events that none of us can imagine right now that will take place in the next three years to which he will lead the nation in reacting and that will actually be an important part of the next three years as well as the questions of progress on the agenda that was laid out right, laid out tonight. Doris, i am thinking of Teddy Roosevelt, your current book and what might be, might we learn from his lessons. Well, he was somebody who used executive orders more than almost anybody else, i mean he understood that he couldnt get certain things through the congress, through that old guard, so he decided i will just issue an order. I am the steward of the people, he said, he actually made the presidency the center at a time when congress was much more important it seemed than the presidency and all those national parks, a lot of those monuments those were executive orders that were issued so i think he can use Teddy Roosevelt as an example of someone who did understand that when you are stymied by the congress you still have powers as president , not just with executive orders but like larry said with mobilizing other people and getting the Business Community and just the remembrance that no matter what, you are the steward of the people. I have got less than a minute here. I have one quick question. Republicans side, does tea party, does the tea party had the same pour it had and does it depend on the midterm elections . No, it doesnt. And that matters, and dont forget not only did rogers give a rejoinder to barack obama tonight but so did rand paul and so did mike lee. Exactly. So lets not think this is a unified Republican Party because it is not when it comes to midterm elections i yield to Larry Summers. Thank you much, great to have you here, mark. Thank you so much. Jim. Glen. Larry, thank you very much for joining us. Good to have you here. Good to be with you. And, doris, from flawrn florida, thank you much. Thank you, charlie. Rose as they often say, it is going to be exciting to watch and see what happens as the president tries to redefine where he wants the country to go and how. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org the following kqed production was produced in high definition. And their buns are something i had yet to find anywhere else. And you can come to my house to dinner. Breaded, fried, gooey, lovely. In the words of arnold schwarzenegger, ill be back. Youve heard of a connoisseur, im a common sewer. I may have to ward off some