Transcripts For WJLA This Week With George Stephanopoulos 20141109

Now. And we begin with that emotional homecoming overnight for the last two americans held prisoner in north korea. Kenneth bae and Matthew Todd Miller touched down in Washington State on an air force jet. Their release secured when americas spy chief James Clapper hand delivered a secret letter from the president to north koreas leader kim jongun. After hugs from his family, bae reflected on two years in captivity. I learned a lot. I grew a lot. I lost a lot of weight, in a good way, but i am standing strong because of you. All of this happening as president obama heads to asia this week leaving behind a capital shaken up by that Midterm Election earthquake. The gop now in solid control of congress. The president s team scrambling to salvage its final two years and were going to analyze all the fallout this morning beginning with jon karl at the white house. Good morning, jon. Reporter good morning, george. The president departed overnight and will spend the next week on the other side of the world seeking to redirect u. S. Foreign policy towards asia while here at home, the new Republican Leadership gets settled in. The president has already broken bread with congressional leaders but he is off to a rocky start with republicans. It was a lunch that brought no real breakthroughs and apparently no smiles either. The president acknowledged the message from tuesday nights drubbing of democrats was loud and clear. The American People just want to see work done here in washington. Theyd like to see more cooperation and i think all of us have the responsibility, me in particular, to try to make that happen. Reporter but despite the election wave that swept republicans into control of the senate it is time for a new way forward. Reporter president obama insists hell still take executive action on Immigration Reform before the end of the year in defiance of republicans in congress. If they want to get a bill done, whether its during the lame duck or next year, i am eager to see what they have to offer. But what im not going tdo is just wait. Reporter and the white house says theres no backing down on that. Even though hes had a chance to sit down to talk to them about it, hes completely closed to the idea of delaying this executive action. Not even willing to talk to them about delaying hes going to take that executive action before the end of the year. Reporter but Republican Leaders warn if the president goes around congress on immigration, it will poison the well on virtually everything. When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself, and hes going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path. Its like waving a red flag in front of a bull to say, if you guys dont do what i want, im going to do it on my own. Reporter so what issues show the biggest chances for actual agreement . There are bipartisan calls for trade, Corporate Tax reform, Infrastructure Spending and the Keystone Pipeline and despite their track record, president obama and republicans showed some signs they may be ready to turn the page. Just because you have divided government doesnt mean you dont accomplish anything. I would enjoy having some kentucky bourbon with Mitch Mcconnell, so i think we can have a productive relationship. Reporter for democrats tuesday was certainly a drubbing but its hardly unprecedented. In fact, going all the way back to world war ii, all four president s who served two full terms faced a congress controlled by the opposing party for their last two years. George. That is what happens. Okay, jon, thanks very much. Overseas the president finds himself in a position he did not anticipate, certainly did not want, sending more troops to iraq. The white house announced friday it was doubling the number of troops in the fight against isis and abcs chief Global Affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz is on that story. Reporter doubling down against isis in iraq, first it was 300 troops on the ground to protect diplomats growing to almost 1600 to train and advise, now up to 3100 approved, not to mention hundreds of air strikes including these on the besieged town of kobani this weekend. So, what will these troops do . Outside erbil in baghdad two expeditionary Operation Centers will be built to advise and assist iraqi and kurdish forces. And at least four additional training sites will be set up in the volatile north, south and al Anbar Province in the west. The white house insists these are not combat troops, but that is some hot territory. Isis strongholds, no question theyll be in more danger. And americans in iraq will get, quote, an appropriate array of force Protection Capabilities which will likely mean attack helicopters. Matt bradley has been reporting on the ground in iraq for 18 months. We spoke to him on skype from baghdad. Most iraqis know that the Obama Administration is going to stick to the commitment that its made to not deploy these troops into a wartime scenario but they do see this as one more step towards the inevitable. There has to be u. S. Troops on the ground because the Iraqi Military is simply incapable of fighting the islamic state. Reporter and this week, president obama is saying hell ask for even more support from congress. Im going to begin Engaging Congress over a new authorization to use military force against isil. Reporter and when one of the most powerful voices in the newly elected Republican Senate says things like this we need to understand that the president is the commander in chief and that role, i do not believe, should be impinged upon by the congress. Reporter the president just might get his wish. For this week, Martha Raddatz, abc news, washington. Thanks to martha for that. And we ares joined by republican congressman darrell issa, chair of the House Oversight and, congressman darrell issa, thanks for joining us. Are you prepared to vote for an authorization of this mission in iraq . I am, george. I was just in both baghdad and erbil in addition to six other nations in the middle east between august and erbil just a few weeks ago. The fact is were already there. Weve had to be there. The government in baghdad is still quite delusional, if you will, about what the real impact is. Theyre still talking about longterm training before theyre ready to fight, so the fact is that if were to protect the gains we made against islamic extremism, my marines from Camp Pendleton and others are going to have to go back again. Theyre going to go back. Should they be in combat position . Iraqis should fight for their country. Theres no question at all. Theyve been trained and they should do it. The fact is the kurds are willing to do it. I have no doubt whatsoever that the kurds will fight and all they need is our air support and our technical knowhow and they will do it. When it comes to the sunni shia divide that the maliki government created, it makes it very, very hard to put together the kind of military units that they should have. That remains to be seen of whether or not the substantial portion of that 800,000 people we trained are willing to fight. The fact is, by the time they started fleeing, we were down to 250000, and when i met with the government they said, well, we have about 8,000 would will fight. I think they have to do better. Let me turn to the broader issues facing the president and congress in these next couple of years. The president is making it very clear hell act on immigration on his own before the end of the year. What are the consequences . Well, the consequences are lost opportunities. In the last congress i authored the skills visa act that not only would have allowed and promoted the best and the brightest being allowed to remain here and add to our economy, these stem, if you will graduates but it scored 100 billion of new revenue to the government. That can be paired with other Immigration Reforms and if the president is willing to work with us in the house and the senate, we could make that happen. If not, shutting down the government. Im not predicting what the result will be other than in my 14 years on judiciary and the work ive tried to do on immigration, time and time again, people have missed opportunities. The fact is our farmers in california need an effective worker program. The reality is that we send home to Foreign Countries the best and the brightest from around the world when, in fact, theyd like to stay here and add to our economy. We need to Work Together to solve both of those problems. Im hoping the president will delay and have a real comprehensive discussion about yq÷ deal is possible on Immigration Reform. Well, lets see if he takes your advice. Congressman issa, thanks for your time this morning. Now to that major new threat targeting our nations Critical Infrastructure and learned this week that hackers have broken into the Computers Controlling our utilities. The life lines for water, gas and power are. Our experts here to weigh in on the dangerous consequences and what can be done to prevent them after this from abcs senior justice correspondent pierre thomas. They just issued a critical alert. The entire network went down. Reporter in the movie live free or die hard, they were able to shut down the power grid and transportation network. That kind of dramatic threat may not just be the stuff of hollywood fiction. In fact, closer to reality than you think. Sources tell abc news hackers in overseas secretly planted Malicious Software inside computer systemed serving our nations most Important Services and industries. Water treatment facilities, power plants, gas pipelines, all critical for daily life now potentially at risk. Authorities believe this electronic trojan horse was inserted into Computer Systems years ago but its not been activated. Theyve given it an ominous name, black energy. In theory black energy could allow a hacker to turn off a generator, flood a Water Treatment plant or shut down a gas pipeline. The threat is ongoing. Abc news obtained a new Homeland Security bulletin that warns, utility owners and operators to look for signs of compromise and to report any suspected intrusion immediately. U. S. Officials are worried because they have hard evidence that such a cyberattack is possible. In this test government hackers forced this generator to selfdestruct with a series of simple keystrokes. Watch. The generator is literally shaking itself apart. As for black energy, the primary suspects, operatives tied to the russian government, and sources say it resembles Malicious Software used in recent attacks on nato and unclassified white house Computer Systems. It may all point to the beginning of a new cold war with the internet as part of the battlefield. Terrorism is still the Number One National Security Threat but weve seen cyber grow at an alarming rate and the threats that we face, the number of actors, the number of breaches, this is a real problem. Reporter its a new world where threats you cannot see can reach out and touch you. For this week, pierre thomas, abc news, washington. Thanks to pierre. Were joined now by abc contributor, former white house counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke and Democratic Congress maman jim langevin from the Armed Services committee. Richard, let me begin with you. Since you left the government you devoted time and study to the threat from cyberattacks and youve concluded that were a lot more vulnerable now than we were then. I think thats right. I think nation states have been building cyberarmies, cybercommands including the United States and theres probably a half dozen nations around the world that have already put these logic bombs in each others networks, not that theyre going to use them unless they go to war. So unless we but thats what i dont understand. So explain that a little bit. This black energy malware which is now in our systems, we believe, why just park there . Well, because you want to be able to get in when you can get in. It may be that if you wait itll be too late to get in, new defenses will be created. You want to have the c when the war starts and bring the enemy to his knees. And so most modern nations now have tried this with their potential enemies. And, congressman, you know the federal government has also studying these threats to the power grid showing the vulnerability of our power grid, attacks on a small number of transmission stations could cause the whole power grid to collapse. How serious is this threat . It is very serious and ive been talking about this for a number of years going back to about 2007 when i chaired the Homeland Security subcommittee that had jurisdiction over cybersecurity and we did a deep dive on this looking at how vulnerable Critical Infrastructure is, in particular how vulnerable our electric grid is and found its very vulnerable. National labs actually did that study that showed that the generator through a skater attack thats a systems control and Data Acquisition system attack could be used to cause a generator or a number of generators to blow themselves up and you could see a whole sector of the country without electricity for a period of not just days or weeks but potentially months because these generators are large, theyre not just like batteries that are sitting on a shelf that you can take one out and plug another one in, these generators take months to build, ship and install. So, Richard Clarke, what can be done to prevent that . Very little. But the thing here to really bear in mind is this is not about to happen. We have Nuclear Weapons we havent used them. We have cyberweapons and weve seldom used them. The United States did do a cyberattack on iran and destroyed some Nuclear Centrifuges but this is a contingency and its very unlikely that it will be used by nation states. The real worry is that eventually nonstate actors, maybe even terrorist groups will gain this. Is this the real threat . Yeah, and richard hit it right on the point right now. Right now these worst weapons and cyberweapons are in the hands of nation states who have the capability but not necessarily the will to use them. But then you have groups like isil or al qaeda that certainly would have the intent but not the weapons, and that gap, that divide, if you will, is becoming much more narrow and eventually the worst actors will have the worst weapons and potentially will use them against us. Ive been trying to raise the alarm on this as richard has been to try to close that aperture of vulnerability. This is not a problem that were ever going that were ever going to solve. Its one that we need to manage. We need to close the aperture of vulnerability to something that is much more manageable so what we need to do in congress is pass an information sharing bill, that bill passed and was unanimous out of the House Intelligence Committee which i sit and passed the house with strong bipartisan support and now were waiting for the senate to take it up. That would allow classified threat information to be passed to the private sector and for the private sector to pass the threats or the attacks that theyre experiencing back to the government so information could be more widely shared. Lets hope that happens. We also need stronger regulatory control. Okay. Lets hope that happens. Thank you both for your time this morning. Coming up, a surprising decision from the Supreme Court on obamacare. Is chief Justice John Roberts about to reverse course and strike down the heart of the law. Plus one of the elections big new stars joins us live. The roundtable weighs in on what it means for 2016. Were back in just two minutes. n announcer this week with George Stephanopoulos brought to you by pacific life. For insurance annuities and investments, choose pacific life. The power to help you succeed. The future to life. For more than 145 years, pacific life has been helping families achieve lifelong Financial Security with innovative tools and strategies. Talk to a Financial Advisor to protect your family and plan today. Pacific life. The power to help you succeed. Announcer this week with Electronic Health records for more than 30 million patients . Or that our Software Helps over 20 million smartphone users remotely configure email every month . Announcer this week with in fact, todays xerox is working in surprising ways to help companies simplify the way work gets done and life gets lived. With xerox, youre ready for real business. The new republican majority is vowing to dismantle obamacare but in a surprise move on friday, the Supreme Court signaled it could do that on its own, a decision the president could not undo with his veto pen. Terry moran explains in our closer look. Reporter from the moment president obama signed his centerpiece legislation back in 2010 we are done. [ applause ] reporter the Affordable Care act, obamacare, has survived one neardeath experience after another, none more dramatic than the Supreme Courts 54 decision to uphold the law in 2012. Now, obamacare is once again in the judicial and political crosshairs. House Speaker John Boehner made that Crystal Clear after the republican midterm stampede. The house im sure at some point next year will move to repeal obamacare because it should be repealed and it should be replaced. Reporter but that idea is likely going nowhere. President obama who wields a veto power that would be tough to override said hed fight to save his biggest achievement. Repeal of the law, i wont sign. Efforts that would take away health care from the 10 Million People who now have it and the millions more who are eligible to get it, were not going to support. Reporter and now the Supreme Court will weigh in again. This time drilling deep into the dense detail of the law where opponents say there is a fatal flaw. Those subsidies to help millions of americans buy insurance, opponents say the law clearly z states they must come through state Insurance Exchanges, but dozens of states refused to set up those exchanges so the Obama Administration provided the subsidies on the federal Insurance Exchange too, and that, opponents say, is illegal. But supporters including the laws authors, they say congress always intended that subsidies should be available to every american who qualifies for them. The stakes couldnt be higher. Millions of americans would Lose Health Care and obamacare itself collapse if the court rules against the administration. So the fate of this law and of president obamas legacy could once again come down to a single vote on the Supreme Court, chief Justice John Roberts. For this week, terry moran, abc news. Thanks, terry. Lets talk about this with jonathan cohn, Senior Editor of the new republic, that magazine marking its 100th anniversary new republic and Carrie Severino of the National Review online. Jonathan, let me begin with you you wrote in the new republic this is alarming. Why . Its alarming because if four of the justices have said they want to hear the case, theres a chance that it could go forward and i think, you know, its important to recognize what were talking about here. This is an attempt to repeal the law, effectively take insurance away from 4 or 5 or several Million People in 36 states because of what is basically a typo. You know, legislation is complicated. Theres this one passage that the opponents have seized upon, they read it out of context. They ignore what the sponsors of the law say now and they say, aha, because of this we should yank insurance away from millions of people and a typo, Carrie Severino. Absolutely not. Even the architect of the law were talking about the section was designed to ensure that the states do participate. The states, however, saw that this was a mess. 36 states said we dont want to have to do with implementing obamacare so they didnt set up exchanges. The law couldnt be clearer. It says exchanges established by a state and that changing that to exchanges established by the federal government, thats not interpretation as the District Court said in this case, thats distortion. I think its an easy question. I think thats what the Supreme Court will say. Jonathan, how do you explain, the plain meaning of the word state is state, isnt it . Well, if you read that one clause in the passage of the law, it says tate but, of course, state was used in many different respects throughout the law. If you read the rest of the law, it is very, very clear that the expectation was that everybody could get subsidies. To read that passage of the law that way would basically create what is a law that would be at war with itself. Its inconsistent with the way the Congressional Budget Office evaluated the law, its inconsistent with memos and briefings given at the time of law and you dont have to take my word for it, the members of congress who voted for this, the congressional staffers who wrote this, if you ask them now, they all say, of course, we meant for everybody to get the subsidies. That was the whole point. So it depends whether you look at the text or the history, but, carrie, as terry said in his piece, this is likely to come down to chief Justice John Roberts. He upheld the law the first time around. Do you believe he wants to reverse himself . I think the challenge here is that the law is very clear. Sure, maybe Congress Members didnt realize that states werent going to play ball. They thought this, dangling this carrot was going to be enough to get the states on board but this law is a mess. The American People have rejected it. I think thats why the states didnt want to get involved and i think youll see the court is going to want to hold congress to the words that it signed and that it passed and the president signed. The text of the law is very clearly what it is. You think the court is going to strike it down. Jonathan cohn, 15 seconds, do you agree . I dont. I think this would be a remarkably political move by a republican court, basically doing for the republicans what they cant do legislatively which is to take insurance away from millions of people who are getting it from this law which by the way is working and working pretty well. Well, we will find out in june. Carrie severino, jonathan cohn, thanks very much. Up next, senatorelect cory gardner flipped colorado. Can he change washington too . Plus, which president ial hopeful from the republican side got the biggest boost from the midterms . Was hillary helped or hurt . Thats all coming up in just two minutes. Ut life insurance. But when we start worrying about tomorrow, we miss out on the things that matter today. At axa, we offer advice and help you break down your insurance goals into small, manageable steps. Because when you plan for tomorrow, it helps you live for today. Can we help you take a small step . For advice, retirement, and life insurance, connect with axa. We came short on keeping our republican majority in the senate. Now, this is not the outcome we sought but our agenda remains unchanged, and i look forward to its attainment. And i accept my share of the responsibility in the result of the elections. I think that the republican congressional leadership will at least have the chance to work with us. Im going to do my dead level best to do that and to be less partisan. This is a close election. If you look at race by race, it was close. The cumulative effect, however, was not too close. It was a thumping. Every president has to take their medicine after the midterms. Lets talk about that and more on our powerhouse roundtable joined by donna brazile, Greta Van Susteren from fox news, the editor in chief of Buzzfeed Ben Smith and John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, the author of those political bestsellers from double down and game change. The president was not going to use the word shellacking like he did in 2010. What word could he have used . A moment of great introspection. The state legislators and i think right now is a snapshot. The republicanhave problems too but tuesday president was a spent Political Force and the Democratic Party either needs to be a liberal party and have the faith in their convictions and what the president s accomplished or they need to find another way. White men, older voters, southern voters, this is a party right now that doesnt have a 50state strategy for winning midterm collections. The washington posts dan balz called it hollowed out. A map that shows how much territory in the House Republicans are controlling. You see all that red right there, donna brazile, and as Mark Halperin just alluded to, democrats have lost more than a dozen senators since president obama took office, more than five dozen members of congress. Dont have any of the big states except for new york and pennsylvanias governors. Barely controlling 30 state legislators. This is a hollowed out party. It is a very tough reality, george. And i wish this was bourbon, but, of course, you dont serve it in the morning. It was a crushing defeat, but, you know, i dont cry after election day. I think the important thing is n that the Democratic Party has to look at what happened. We didnt have a message. We didnt turn out our voters. We had old recycled ideas that, yes, voters support raising the minimum wage, but thats not an economic plan for the future. The president who oddly could have been an asset for the party, many of our candidates ran against the president or ran away from his policies and many of his policies proved popular even in red states like, again, raising the minimum wage. We found social issues that didnt resonate because voters wanted more than just social issues. And, greta, you heard donna deliver a much more bracing analysis than anything we heard from the president or the white house. Absolutely. Probably more democrats would vote for her now. The president said he didnt have the democrats didnt have a good night. Thats what he said and that meant it was more like a horse race, a scoring. It wasnt that they have rejected what it is the democratic policy party had to serve up. Now, the republicans werent offering much either. I mean there was not a big republican agenda out there. This was clearly a rejection of the democratic agenda, a rejection of the president s policies but hes calling it more like a sporting event and even chairman Wasserman Schultz said we didnt have a good night. Theres no sort of realization that, no, were not giving the voters what they want. Ben smith, do you think republicans understand this wasnt necessarily an endorsement of the republican brand. Coming out of the exit polls, you still saw more than 60 say they dont endorse if they do understand, it would be a massive break where every party takes the most recent results as a mandate and very often kind of strengthens, you know, their conservative more liberal wings and i do think what greta said about in public and private, the white house just not giving any quarter. Not seeing this as any reason to do much different. The thing they should look at, John Heilemann, the final results, so much more sweeping than anyone thought even going into election day. No doubt about it but there is this is a replay in a lot of ways of 2010 and then we remember what happened in 2012. To me one of the things and the reason i think democrats have a Little Something to hope for is the fundamental reality and i cant believe im quoting john edwards, but there are two americas, an america that shows up in Midterm Elections and one that shows up in president ial elections and democrats still going to the 2016 election with 245 electoral votes on the way to 270 republicans have to chip away at. Right now republicans win elections with the older, whiter, more conservative married america and democrats in president ial years can attract the minority voters and young voters that allow them to win in those you did see some democrats like cory gardner will come up soon, start to pick up in colorado, Greta Van Susteren, did a little better with the hispanic vote and a little better with the younger vote. Yeah, but i think hes right about the two americas and here i am now quotingsh senator john edwards, there are and the Democratic Party expected that other america to come out and vote for them but the Democratic Party has not delivered to them and i think that they stayed home. The twothirds that stayed home because you know what, the two americas, you know, they didnt deliver what they said they would. A lot more to cover. We got to take a quick break right now. Back with more roundtable and as i said rising star cory gardner and our sunday spotlight marks todays 25th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall which inspired todays powerhouse puzzler. Which american musician performed the biggest concert ever on the other side of the wall in east berlin . The year was 1988. Bonus points if you can name the famous song he covered. Well be back in two minutes with the answer. I gave you another clue. I said he. vo you are a business pro. Solver of the slice. Teacher of the unteachable. You lower handicaps. And raise hopes. And you. Rent from national. Because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. And go. You can even take a fullsize or above, and still pay the midsize price. pro nice drive. vo well played, business pro. Well played. Go national. Go like a pro. But when we start worrying about tomorrow, we miss out on what matters today. At axa, we offer advice and help you break down your retirement goals into small, manageable steps. Because when you plan for tomorrow, it helps you live for today. Can help you take a small step . For advice, retirement, and life insurance, connect with axa. So which american musician had the biggest concert ever in east germany, 1988 . Lets see the answers. John heilemann, da boss. The boss. All three of you are right. I cop four out of five had bruce springsteen. What did he play . Does anybody know . Bob dylans chimes of freedom. Look at that scene in 1988. Das good. Well be back chimes of freedom. Das good. Well be back. Das good. Well be back. Great rates and safety working in harmony. Open an optimizer plus account from synchrony bank. Visit myoptimizerplus. Com to open an account. Service. Security. Savings. Synchrony bank engage with us. Its time to get to work are finally over, fixing our longterm National Debt to help build a stronger economy. With a solid fiscal foundation, we can create more jobs, invest more in innovation and infrastructure, and make america more competitive, giving our kids a better future. A bipartisan solution to our longterm debt means more growth today, more opportunity tomorrow. And the time to start is now. But when we start worrying about tomorrow, we miss out on the things that matter today. At axa, we offer advice and help you break down your insurance goals into small, manageable steps. Because when you plan for tomorrow, it helps you live for today. Can we help you take a small step . For advice, retirement, and life insurance, connect with axa. As republicans in colorado, weve gotten used to the saying, wait until the next election. Well, ive got news for you, that next election, it finally happened. [ cheers and applause ] and that is the new republican senator from colorado, cory gardner riding a big smile and a skillful campaign to a big win in that battleground state that president obama won twice, the senatorelect joins us from colorado this morning. Senator, thank you for joining us this morning. So give me a headline sentence. What was the message the voters were sending tuesday night . That whats happening in washington, d. C. Isnt working. Its not as much about republicans and democrats as much as the fact of the direction. The policies of washington arent working for the people of this state or this country. How do you fix it coming right out of the box . You have to fix it right out of the box, i believe by working together republicans and democrats putting ideas forward on the president s desk, ideas that the broad majority of American People support and showing that we can govern. Republicans show that we can govern maturely, that we can govern with competence and if we do that in two years from now well have a good result again with our nominee. If we dont, well see the same results two years from now but in a different direction. Does that include repealing obamacare or going for something the president can sign first . Well, i do think we need to repeal and replace obamacare but the president named obama is not going to repeal a bill named obamacare. And so lets put on his desk things like repealing the medical device tax, making sure that we can repeal the ipad board, things that have bipartisan support and restore the 40hour workweek and these have bipartisan support and it shows that we are serious about our intention to govern. Does that mean things like shutting down the government off the table . The Government Shutdown is a bad idea anytime anywhere. And we saw the president , we know theres going to be a showdown coming on immigration as well and the president reiterating hes prepared to go it alone to provide more protections for undocumented immigrants. What does that mean for cooperation and how will republicans in the senate and the house respond . You know, i hope that the Immigration Reform effort by the house and the senate will gain speed and momentum. Ive supported Immigration Reform and believe we need to go there, but the question is this, will the president do the right thing . And i think the president will do the right thing when it comes to Immigration Reform and that is working with the house and the senate instead of going around the house and senate. So you dont believe it when he says hell issue that executive order . Well, again, i hope the president does the right thing. I havent seen the executive order. I dont know what its going to do but i hope the president and encourage the president to do the right thing and that is to work with the house and the senate on a solution because whatever the executive order is, if he does, indeed, do that will not be the kind of changes and reforms that we need to the overall immigration system, so lets do the right thing, lets Work Together. Finally, senator, you won in a state as i said president obama won twice. Whats the memo youre goi to write to the republican candidate in 2016 to say, this is how you win in colorado . That you have to have an optimistic message. You have to have a vision for the state, the country, that people are drawn to. We talked about growing the economy. We talked about Energy Independence but more than anything in this Rocky Mountain state people want to be able to look their eyes up to the great Rocky Mountain horizon and recognize the fact we have an ever hopeful state and thats the kind of message we had to capture to make sure people were proud again and to make sure that we can build toward a government we can be proud of. Congratulations, senator. Well talk to you again soon. Thank you very much. Relentlessly optimistic, cory gardner right there. Greta van susteren, he set a standard and said republicans in the next years have to show they can govern. Can Speaker Boehner, Mitch Mcconnell do it . Well, theyve got they said theyre going to do it so they better do it. The interesting issue what they passed, will it when it goes to the president will it be so untenable to the president he vetoes it and creates bigger problems . Both sides have an opportunity now, the president does and so do the republicans, you know, weve heard a lot of campaign happy talk, well, now we want to see some product. Some happy talk, John Heilemann, and we saw tough talk from the president and the white house defying even some of their own advisers and former advisers Going Forward, they say, with this executive order before even giving the congress to pass Immigration Reform. o, instance on the notion that they have let latino voters down by delaying thus far and need to do something to make to solidify the connection of hispanic voters, the most important voting bloc Going Forward in 2016, to keep them locked into the democratic coalition. I guess their calculation even if republicans say there will be spillover on other issues is that that really wouldnt help the gop so they are mott going to do it. No, of course not. Look, the republicans have an opportunity tomorrow to pass an immigration bill. I mean theres a bill sitting on the docket now from the senate, 6832. When the republicans, their message in 2010 was give us the house and we will fix the economy. We gave them the house and they practically did nothing. Now they say we have both the house and the senate and will work with the president on certain issues. I dont think its going to happen. You cant deny the fact that senator harry reid pocket vetoed everything that came from the house, even if it was a bad bill from the house, if he passed one and sent it to conference both sides could have worked it out or tested that proposition. One difficulty for john boehner he has a much bigger majority right now but also brought in many more conservative tea party members. Absolutely, and i think if you actually look at that colorado race, it doesnt answer these questions about immigration because udall udall decided not to draw a contrast on that issue. Gardner who opposed it then muddied the issue and udall decided it wasnt the terrain he wanted to fight on so its really hard to tell coming out of that race and that state that has such a big hispanic population where its so important, it kind of remains an open question. Mark, i know one of the ways you put it and a good way to look at it is respect Speaker Boehner and leader mcconnell willing to take risks . What are they willing to risk . Theyre going to have to take some risks, risks of dealing with the president , risk of being the party who are for fundamental restructuring of entitlement programs, the risk of trying to pass Immigration Reform for the good of their 2016 nominee and standing up to talk radio. There are a ton of things they can do. They are unified. Not known as bold risk takers who go out in public and throw down the gauntlet. They will have to if they want to do whats good for the country. One risk is really obvious risk right now. Youve seen the last five days as mcconnell and boehner have been talking about, some degree of compromise and hear the base and the republican the right the right most quadrants of talk radio already braying at the notion that do not do deals with barack obama, do not legislation. This is not what the election is about, its about saying no to barack obama and repealing and investigating and so on. That voice those voices already very, very loud right now. At 14 of public approval i dodoubt very seriously the republicans are going to do anything that will further damage their brand. They dont try to make some inroads and try to move more toward the middle and hopefully to try to get better position for 2016. Make the president look unreasonable. 123w4r biggest thing of the week, Mitch Mcconnell who is underrated took off the table shutdown, took off the table playing with the debt ceiling. Didnt have much of an uproar in response, at least not yet. And uproar is minor and these new members like cory gardner who you talked to all are going to be part in in the senate at least will be part of what do we do thats reasonable for the party image and to try to make deals. You just saw cory gardner. He took Government Shutdown off the table as well and didnt dig in hard on obamacare but, donna brazile, we have some history here with comebacks. You saw bill clinton come back from impeachment and strike deals with the republican majority in his final two years. What is the comeback strategy now for barack obama . Well, look, pass the bourbon, he said. Back to the bourbon again. Back to the bourbon again. You know, we keep hearing about trade. We keep hearing about tax reform. We keep hearing about another socalled grand bargain. I dont think just finding ways to appease republicans will is enough for president obama. Part of the dropoff in democratic support and the president s support comes from his own base. They want to see action on the economy. They want jobs, they want the president to deal with issues that impact the middle class. If he fails to do that, he might get a little love from the republicans but not enough. Unclear if he can do that, ben smith, final 30 seconds. You saw a different model from Ronald Reagan. He went to all Foreign Policy in his final two years after apologizing for irancontra. That doesnt look like Fertile Ground for president obama. You know, i think was to everybodys surprise day one involve himself personally on Foreign Policy and gotten burned there repeatedly and in some ways i think spent a lot of that capital that other president s have saved for those last two years. See if he gets an iran deal but doing exactly the opposite of what he wanted to do on iraq. Coming up another quick break. Who was helped and hurt by the midterms the most and what does it mean for Hillary Clintons chances, well look at 2016. Announcer catch this week online all week at abcnews. Com, on facebook and twitter. The Midterm Elections didnt just signal a sea change in washington, they also served as the starting gun for 2016. The roundtable here to weigh in on who was helped and hurt. Who is next out of box after abcs david wright shows us all the ways its been done before. Reporter barack obama may not be a lame duck yet but unofficially the campaign to replace him has already begun. Potential candidates may be saying theyre not ready to declare its going to be a decision about family and going to do it joyfully. I honest to god have not made up my mind. In the end thats the decision you make in here. Reporter but you can bet theyre getting their ducks in a row. On average president ial candidates tend to announce about 200 days before the iowa caucuses. That would mean sometime next june. Senator john kennedy shows his hat in the president ial ring. Reporter the way they announce has changed a lot since jfk held his press conference at the u. S. Senate. I am today announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Reporter when Ronald Reagan announced, youtube didnt exist. But his announcement video seems tailor made for it. If im elected, i shall regard my election as proof that the people of the United States have decided to set a new agenda. Reporter a controlled environment. Hillary clinton did the same in 2007. So let the conversation begin. I have a feeling its going to be very interesting. Reporter sometimes things dont go exactly as planned. In 1987, Pat Robertson declared his candidacy in brooklyn coming out to the rocky theme, only to get bbed. That i am an official candidate for the republican nomination for the presidency of the United States. Reporter in 1992, billionaire ross perot was the first to do the talk show announcement dropping this challenge on larry king live. If youre that serious, you, the people, you register me in 50 states. Reporter paving the way for john mccain on letterman. This is the announcement proceeding how do you think that makes me feel . Reporter and rand paul on gma. At this moment im officially announcing that i am a candidate for president. Reporter sure, there are still some traditionalists. Edwards invoking katrina in new orleans. Theres so much good to be done out there and together were going to do it. Reporter for obama invoking lincoln and springfield, illinois. There is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. Reporter the one thing not to expect this time around, any mention at all of the word audacity, although plenty will be calling for change. For this week, david wright, abc news, new york. A great look back. I should issue the invitation, any candidate who wants to announce here on gma, were happy to have you at any time. But lets talk a little bit more about what the results mean for these various candidates. Mark halperin, hillary, of course, dominating right now and theres two schools of thought on whether the president s defeat helps her or hurts her. Where do you come down . Helps her because the party needs a savior and right now as dan balzs piece we mentioned earlier points out, theres not a lot of others in the party, in congress, amongst the governors who can represent the future. Shes powerful as someone with a big following on social media, who can raise a lot of money, whos nationally and internationally known. Her operation does not deal with new data very well. They obsess over everything and overthink things. Does she oppose republicans in congress . Is she the candidate to say im going to win things back for the democrats or is she the candidate that says i can work with republicans and break the gridlock . I think strategically im not convinced shes going to run still . Yeah, im not convinced. First of all, who wants the job is my thinking. I guess but think about it, now she can run she doesnt have to run so much against president obama. She can run against a Republican House and a Republican Senate. So she doesnt have to offend the obama base by saying basically that he didnt do a good job and that he ignored you. So shes got so strategically shes in a much better positionc people are sick of gridlock. You run against the party just taking power that turns some people off. Two years they want a plan for the economy. I think Hillary Clinton has an opportunity to really make a compelling case of how we can grow the economy in this socalled era of inequality so i think she should just sit back, let all of the dust settle, let the democrats figure out what happened and then sometime in the spring emerge with a plan that can really bring this country together. Even when she sits back all the attention comes to her. You know, we had this partnership with facebook that kind of tries to track the sentiment that we call sentimeter. Over the course of the days over the course of the Midterm Elections she got 100,000 more mentions than Chris Christie, down ted cruz, rand paul, jeb bush, far behind. Now, ben smith, you are having a partnership with facebook as well on buzzfeed. Thats the volume. What about the quality of the interaction . I mean i think whats so interesting is that if you just were getting the first slices of this data and see unusual things like joe biden is the best regarded of any of these politicians on there. I think what is the really interesting thing to see with these vast new networks, facebook, Something Like 185 million americans on it. Thats a lot more than any Tv Ad Campaign is going to reach. They favor different stuff. They favor responsibilile responsible nady. They favor goofiness, the ice bucket challenge was this strange thing that came out of nowhere and spread, you know, at a scale that really like wasnt doable without billions of dollars in tv advertising before and i think itll be interesting to see how these candidates and whether they can navigate that. Arent traits that Hillary Clinton came up in politics you know leads to a question for Chris Christie on the republican side, probably a big winner tuesday night, the chair of the Republican Governors Association had a lot of big wins including in democratic states and hes going to see whether his kind of straight talking sit down and shut up style works. Hes going well find out about that. If he decides to run obviously hes waiting like a lot of people in the Republican Party waiting to see whether jeb bush is going to run. Can he not run if jeb runs . He may run if jeb runs but will set off a huge contest between o o heavyweights over who will be the establishment favorite, who will get the donor class, how the donor class is going to go because that matters a lot obviously in the republican primary. You know, theres also a couple of other winners who came out of the midterms, one is john kasich, the governor of ohio who won reelection by 31 points and got a quarter of the africanamerican vote in ohio. Which is really pretty staggering and a huge important battleground state. And took Medicaid Expansion which is a big deal in that state for the moderate and thats why he won by 31 points, because he ran kind of to the center and scott walker on the brink of having his future obliterated and won a convincing victory in wisconsin and can take a look at it. Governor christie has a problem. Hes the head of the republican governors and two years from now well look at the economy in new jersey and so far theyve had seven credit downgrades since the time hes been governor. That doesnt look good so i think that many of the voters will be looking towards governors and when they look towards governors theyll dig in and look at the numbers, you know, what did the governors really do running the states because people care about the economy. You know, the war on women, women i think, the independent women werent talking about the war on women and that sort of turned out to be a silly slogan because the women are more concerned with the kid in their basement with 100,000 Student Loans who cant get a job and republicans are Walking Around with that slogan. You got rand paul koa cruz, marco rubio waiting to see what jeb bush does, as well. Yeah, i mean these are all its a wideopen field. One thing i should say about the sentiment data around Chris Christie, its a little bit positive and split inside new jersey. Inside . Big strong republican field but theres a vulnerability when you think about matching with Hillary Clinton, Foreign Policy and national security. Even these senators, theyre mostly younger, even jeb bush does not have a defined Foreign Policy vision. Has the leg sieve his brother and you go through Chris Christie has refused to weigh in on most international issues, thats a real vulnerability for them at a time thats all that Hillary Clinton gets the nomination, but shes every single frontrunner, shes the biggest frontrunner democrats have ever had and gets some kind of challenge that draws blood. Remember, she was a big frontrunner in 2008 and all of a sudden barack obama did you see barack obama in the last no, but i do see Elizabeth Warren who is very popular with the democratic base, has a message that resonates with people and who knows, i mean greta talks about the war on women, she talks about the war on womens paychecks and the fact that women are making less because were not doing more to help them. So, i still see and hillary has a hard road. Two governors out there that the democrats are sort of sleeper candidates say their names because we se. Governor omalley but also governor senator manchin of west virginia. Up next, 25 years since the fall of the berlin wall. In this weeks sunday spotlight, a huge day in history. 25 years ago today the berlin call came down. The concrete barrier that symbolized the cold war has now been down for nearly as long as it was up, and its been replaced right now by a new wall, 8,000 glowing balloons stretching more than nine miles across berlin. Heres abcs john donvan. Reporter because it did actually happen on that cold german night the wall has suddenly become irrelevant. Reporter because they did get to take bludgeons to it and dance atop it. Shouted, sang, laughed and cried. It was a moment in history. Reporter because it finally literally came down, its hard to see now how unlikely even impossible it all seemed. Back when the berlin wall stood as this permanent impermeable thing and the cold war that it defined had no way to end. The wall had brought one president to berlin in 1963. Ikt bin even berliner. And a full generation later another. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Reporter so many east berliners risked their lives trying to defeat it. Some made it across. Many were gunned down. So that to those who lived on its dark side, the freedom in their own citys other half seeped like a planet far away. Reporter katharina von munster born there and a teenager in the 80s could see the wall from her bidroom window. That and also one of these. Right at eye level. So you could see the guard. I couldnt see the guard because the windows were tinted so i couldnt see the guard. You knew he was in there. Reporter being watched. It was how life was lived but that ended when the communist leadership flinched and east berliners sensing it rushed for the gates and this time nobody gunned them down. Oh, i happy, happy, happy. Reporter this was not just a german celebration, the whole world wanted in. New Yorker Joe Crowley was traveling in europe, and he got himself there with a borrowed hammer. He went at the wall too. It was almost like color and black and white. Reporter today hes a u. S. Congressman who says being there was so big. I dont think i was able to really fully be cognizant of exactly just the magnitude of it all. Reporter it was that the world changed that night in ways that still take katharinas breath away like her beingn abl to move to america and having an american daughter, none of what happened back then is for her an abstraction. And also to, you know, pass it on to the next generation that you have to defend freedom. You cannot take it for granted. Reporter you lived it. It was really a miracle. Reporter john donvan, abc news, washington. The pentagon did not release the names of any Service Members killed in afghanistan or iraq this week. On veterans day this tuesday all of us will pause to recognize those who served. You can send a message of thanks to a special vet on our facebook page. Use the honoravet. Thats all for us today. Thanks for sharing part of your sunday with us. Check out world news tonight and ill see you tomorrow on gma. Gma