Transcripts For WRC Meet The Press 20150216

Dana carvey and the snl effect on politics. Im chuck todd. And joining me to provide insight and analysis this morning are nbcs joe scarborough, White House Correspondent april ryan, the washington posts Kathleen Parker and former Senior Adviser to president obama david axelrod. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. From nbc news in washington this is meet the press, with chuck todd. Good morning. For the second time this year a European Capital is recovering from an apparent terrorist attack, linked to islamic extremism. This time it is copenhagen, denmark. Police shot dead a gunman they believe was responsible for a pair of attacks that left two people dead. One in a cafe, where a free speech event was taking place. And another at a synagogue. Our chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel has been following the story and joins me now from istanbul. Richard, what can you tell us . Do we know for sure the attacker was doing this on behalf or inspired by al qaeda . Reporter certainly officials in denmark believe that this was a terrorist attack. And they are going to Great Lengths to say that denmark is not at war with islam but is at war with radical islam. They seem to be linking it. And it is almost a mini Charlie Hebdo style attack a mini attack like the one we saw in paris. What happened was yesterday around 3 30 this gunman goes up to a cafe opened fire with an automatic rifle. The gunman was wearing a mask, heavy winter coat. He fires about 40 shots into the cafe window. At the cafe at the time was a free speech event and the keynote speaker at that event was lars, a swedish cartoonist who has been targeted for death by al qaeda who has drawn caricature of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog in the past. Someone that al qaeda wanted to kill. Then the attacker got away. He was on the run for several hours as police were looking for him. Around 1 00 in the morning overnight, he opened fire, not surprisingly at a synagogue. Again, a jewish target, very similar to the Charlie Hebdo attack. He killed a guard at the synagogue and in the early hours overnight around 4 50 in the morning, police confronted the suspect. The suspect opened fire on police. Police returned fire and they killed him. All right, as western europe deals with this, i know you just got back from iraq. And were going to be debating this war resolution about what the president wants to go after isis to get Congressional Authority to do this it means it is going after isis in iraq and syria. What did you see in iraq . Officials here claim theyre making progress against isis in iraq. Reporter i was incredibly depressed frankly. I knew iraq was in bad shape. It was even worse than i thought. Isis is a huge problem in iraq and syria. But unless you confront the much bigger issues the issue of will occurred kurdistan be an independent state. What happens to sunni areas . Will the government in baghdad continue to be run by Shiite Militia militias . What happens with assad . Unless you address the bigger issues, it is still going to be there. I was completely discouraged by what i saw. The iraqi army has been described as pathetic, little more than a coalition of militias. So i got no indication that things are going well. All right. Richard, thank you for your sober account there. Well discuss this attack plus the war against isis with two key senators from the Armed Services committee the first one is the chairman of that committee, senator john mccain of arizona. And the 2008 republican president ial nominee. Then ill speak with the Ranking Member of the Armed Services committee, rhode island democrat jack reed. It has been over a year since we had you on the program. Let me start, based on what you heard Richard Engel report about the state of things in iraq, and as we debate this war resolution first of all, why do we need this resolution . Why does the president need this authorization when we have two authorizations that essentially give him the authority to do what he wants in arguably both of the countrys . Well, probably it is not absolutely necessary but it has been since 2002 as i recall that we had resolution that was aimed particularly at al qaeda, and those that were responsible for the attacks on the United States. So i think it is probably appropriate. It is probably appropriate to have the debate. But the president hasnt come forward yet with a plan or a strategy for us to succeed. And in his proposal, he left out Bashar Al Assad, which is really amazing in that we are training young syrians to go in andight against Bashar Al Assad. Does that mean we wont protect him against the barrel bombing of Bashar Al Assad who already killed well over 200000 syrians . It is really kind of convoluted and i would say maybe call it an uncertain trumpet. Are you going to be one of those proposing for Broader Authority for the president and the resolution as it gets debated . I think we should not restrain the president of the United States. The congress has the power of the purse. If we dont like what the commander in chief is doing, we can cut off his funds for doing so. But to restrain him in our authorization of him taking military action, i think frankly it is unconstitutional and eventually leads to 535 commanders in chief. Let me ask you this larger question. Youre somebody that youve been pushing hard to see a little more military presence in some of these countries, to increase the security. But as richard outlined if you dont have if you dont have the Iraqi Government ready with a political solution, if you dont have a stable syria, dont have a stable libya, it doesnt matter the minute the u. S. Pulls out, if they get involved in the country, they pull out, chaos ensues. If we stay in, you keep the stability, but we seem to want stability more than these countries. So why keep doing them . Well i think it is pretty clear, in fact it is absolutely clear that once we had the situation stabilized, thanks to the surge and sacrifice for a lot of american lives, if we left the force behind, the position would have remained stable. To pull everybody out as the president did was a huge mistake. These things dont happen by accident. Just as if he pulls everybody out of afghanistan, without conditions based, youre going to see the same thing happen there. And so many of us predicted, it was predictable and we predicted it. Lindsey graham and i said this would happen because of our many visits there. So you have to have the stabilizing force. Youre going to also have to have american boots on the ground. That does not mean massive numbers as the president sets up that straw man all the time, but it means controllers, special forces and many others. It will be a tough, tough time rebuilding the iraqi military, which is defeated, which means get arms to the peshmerga who are fighting well and can fight but, look, in syria, there is no strategy whatsoever. We may train 3,000 to 5,000 people. We just hear from our defense people that 20,000 people have already come into syria. Let me get you a couple other quick questions. There is this Homeland Security funding debate taking place between Senate Republicans and house republicans. Where do you stand on this . Do you think using Homeland Security funding should be the way you protest the president s actions . On immigration . I think it would be terrible. I think we have to the American People didnt give us majority to have a fight between house and Senate Republicans. They want things done. We cannot cut funding for the department of Homeland Security. We need to sit down and work this thing out and there is ways we can address what president did was unconstitutional. But it is not through cutting shutting down the department of Homeland Security. It is too serious. Senator mccain i have to leave it there i have a lot to get to i appreciate you coming on. Thank you. You got it. Senator reed, welcome back to meet the press. Thank you. Want to pick up on a couple of issues i didnt get to get to with him. Talking about syria. He brought it up. The syria strategy you heard richard reporting in iraq, but everybody agrees nobody quite knows what it is. Are you going to support a resolution giving the president more authority to combat isis in iraq and syria without knowing what the syria strategy is . The resolution is based upon the threat of isil against the United States. Theyre Holding Territory in iraq defense our regionals. It is a national effort. We have the jordanians aligned with us, the uae with us, et cetera. We have concentrated on the most immediate threat, that threat is isil in syria and in iraq. And thats what the authority has requested for. You dont think you have to outline how what can you get rid of isis . Thats fine. Whats going to something will replace it in syria that is probably not going to be friendly to the United States. What were trying to do, this is very challenging, is to develop an alternative to the radical jihadist in syria. That is the free syrian army. We begin to train them. We authorized the training. It is going to take time. Were going to have to build it. Were going to have to introduce it on the ground. Hopefully that will be the nucleus for moderate forces to begin to turn the tide in syria. It is going to take a much longer time. Relatively speaking three year then, you think it should be longer. You think three years is too short . I think three years is not appropriate where we dont want to send a signal to the world that were there for just some years. Unfortunately, this battle will take a long time. It is a battle based upon richard reporting, he said some of the fundamental issues are political. The engagement of sunnis, the allocation of resources within iraq, even when you get into syria, what is this little opposition going to look like . Not so much what kind of Tactical Units do we have on the ground. I think we would be better off having a resolution that did not have a specific time limit. I do think though it makes sense to indicate strongly that our engagement would be limited in terms of American Military personnel. And that i think is in the resolution. Let me ask you a question i get a lot, why is it our fight . At some point there is a feeling, we cant do it. This became our fight in 20022003 when we decided to preempt take out the Iraqi Government. But whether you agree with the iraq war or not, you ble the United States government has a responsibility to put the middle east together. We have the consequences of the decision. That is destabilize country in iraq to a degree, syria. A lot of this is flowing from that decision. We have to do this in our own selfinterest. Were doing this to help countries, but ultimately it is about protecting ourselves. We dont want radicalized well trained individuals coming back from iraq or syria and attacking the United States. We dont want other countries that are allies are being subjected to this pressure. The fight has to be theirs. The fight is as much about the politics of the situation as it is about operational technique and forces them ever out. Both you and senator mccain are allied when it comes to this idea of giving ukraine arms. Arming this opposition. Ukrainian army could never gee feet the defeat the russian army if the russians chose to escalate. If we do this and the ukrainians get slaughtered is it the United States responsible to escalate again on that clause. I believe that defineing defensive weapons should not be played with ultimately sending in any Ground Forces or more overt help. That has to be clear to them. What it will do is it will increase the cost to the russians. And not only the military efforts, but more importantly the economic sanctions. These costs accumulate at some point. The hope is that putin becomes more sensitive to what hes doing and stop this. It sends a strong signal to the ukrainian people fighting very badly but to our allies part of nato and other countries that were not just going to stand completely aside. I have no great optimism but the way you do that is first get the attention. This may be a way to do that. Senator jack reed, thank you very much. Before that senator john mccain. We have new polling. We were discussing this on friday. It was this issue, a majority of americans support what the president is trying to do there is basically mixed feelings about whether there is confidence in the president s strategy. I think it goes to this where i think americans realize they want to get rid of the threat but they assume once we get ritt of it well never get out. Well, they have learned. They watched the news since 2003. They hear republicans blaming democrats for getting out of iraq too early. We heard that today. It the democrat blaming republicans for getting into iraq in the first place. And they sit here and here we are 11, 12 years later were worse off. Youre right chuck. What you heard is what i heard and sure 300, 400 speeches nobody wants us to go back in there. Yes we may have to put boots on the ground. But they dont want America Fighting this battle anymore. Japan has a stake in it. Saudi arabia, the whole world has a stake in it. All i here is enough. This is not americas war. Well help out. But were not leading the parade anymore. Another poll number here. What is the president going to be ending a war or starting a war. Many people said about starting a new war. Thats not the legacy candidate barack obama thought he was going to have and maybe the country thinks el going to have one of the pieces of hope and change is the fact he was going to pull troops out of iraq. You have to i was too surprised at this poll, when it tet something about the president , his legacy starting the war. Is he starting a war or acting. Were seeing advances in iraq by isis and the iraqis are not able to stand up for themselves. We are are dealing with situations we are having to respond to especially with the lone wolf issue that were wondering what is going to happen. David, something in the war resolution and youre a wordsmith. The president s proposed resolution checked every here we have this youre asking for Congressional Authority to military action, should you be rechecking them . It is all about pulling at heart strings . I was surprised the name check. It is a way of saying we have a Real National security interest in being there. We wrote in 2002 ashe senate he said he impotionsed the invasion. Thats what happened. Until we find a little splugsolution, we can create the time and space for them to get together. It feels like it is just like yeah. With. We got to go in because you got to clear and create stability, create the space for them to create their own political stability. They dont do it some other group will raise up. We had 180,000 troops in iraq and afghanistan when he took office and 15,000 there now. History is hard to judge in the moment. Kathleen. Look, president bush never keeps when hes with president and had to go to war under the circumstances we all believed at the time, he put in place a lot of tools. The patriot act and all that. He told me once during an interview, difficult things that were very unpopular. I think president obama is in that situation now where he does see. The ball is in his cord and he feels he has to do something. He would be in a loss, loss situation. If he does something it is the wrong thing. It is a debate we wont end this morning here. Im going to be back in a minute. Well change topics a little bit. The race for the white house. Brant new polling data. A week this sunday well be dealing with a sunday primary. [ male announcer ] ours was the first modern airliner, revolutionary by every standard. And that became our passion. To always build Something Better airplanes that fly cleaner and farther on less fuel. That redefine comfort and connect the world like never before. After all, you cant turn dreams into airplanes unless your passion for innovation is nonstop. I make a lot of purchases for my business. And i get a lot in return with ink plus from chase. Like 60,000 bonus points when i spent 5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. And i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at Office Supply stores. With ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. Travel, gift cards even cash back. And my rewards points wont expire. So you can make owning a business even more rewarding. Ink from chase. So you can. One year from a this sunday well be through iowa and new hampshire. We thought it would be a good time to see where the race starts. We have brandnew nbc news marist polls from those early primary president ial battleground states. Here is the biggest takeaway. A wide open republican field. Let me go through the leaders. In iowa, huckabee, bush walker. Only guys in double digits. New hampshire Bush Walker Hall and christie. South carolina, lindsey graham, bush, walker, huckabee and carson. In all, there were seven different republican candidates who got double digits from the reports we saw there. Interestingly enough if you sort of give their standings and do a points system, here is the four leaders in total. Jeb bush and scott walker got double digit support in all three states. Huckabee and paul. You could argue that might end up being the final four. In the democratic side Hillary Clinton leads the pack and she leads big. 68 69 65 . Shes going away the democratic field. Let me bring you to the desk. Kathleen parker, those four, one thing i grabbed from this, there is no one frontrunner but i think we know what the top tier is. The top tier is bush and walker. Absolutely. I was actually surprised to see jeb bush doing as well as he is. Hes starting from scratch there. The thing that i think is interesting is huckabees place in that top four because i dont know how long that will hold. Because one thing i heard from social conservatives is their going to follow the william f berkeley rule. If you look at it, you have the insider, the governor the evangelical and libertarian, right . So question is which one of them eats into the other guys support here. Thats what it comes down to. It does. You have three moderate but Establishment Republicans who will try to cut each other up. Jeb bush and chris christie. Scott walker. Why do you put walker . Hes actually the sweet spot. A little bit above. What is as iffing is i heard people saying scott walker. Hes a aa short stop. Not big enough to figure the stage there are a lot of people in the bush camp that are surprised. We test eded eded this is hillarys nomination. This will not be competitive despite the bush polls. Chuck, it is Hillary Clintons stage. You never know. Anything can happen. But she is the rock star for the democratic party. I say this now, when barack obama leaves the office, there will be a lot of air left out. The democrats will try to find somebody to bring back that love, is the latter love to laugh, the republicans, i think shes got it for a while. She had to pick. We havent seen him. We dont know how hes going to deal with the pressures of running for president. Ive been through this a few times. And the bar gets raised every sim. I think jeb bush could be a tough candidate. We saw rand paul stumbling early early. Scott walker has been through three tough fights. Not about the struggle, but well see. A little later on the show dont miss this. Dana carvey who helped turn doing impressions of politicians into an art form. Rockefeller center. 40 push your enterprise and you can move the world. But to get from the old way to the new youll need the right it infrastructure. From a partner who knows how to make your enterprise more agile borderless and secure. Hp helps business move on all the possibilities of today. And stay ready for everything that is still to come. Daughter do you and mom still have money with that broker . Dad yeah, 20 something years now. Thinking about what you want to do with your money . Daughter looking at options. What do you guys pay in fees . Dad i dont know exactly. Daughter if youre not happy do they have to pay you back . Dad it doesnt really work that way. Daughter you sure . Vo are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed . Wealth management at charles schwab. Tfrnlts. Welcome back. As you may remember Eric Shinseki was forced to resign after it was revealed that some veterans had died while waiting for care at va facilities in arizona and elsewhere. In a moment, ill be joined by the new Veterans Affairs secretary robert mcdonald. First tom brokaw has been investigating the polite of homeless Homeless Veterans. An spoerm of volunteer ss to count the homeless. And one in ten is a veteran. They gave sacrifices that none of the rest of us will understand. Los angeles has the largest population of Homeless Veterans in the country. Many get a cool reception. It wasnt all that way. In 1888, land was given to be maintained for soldiers. It was leased to outsiders who had nothing to do with the veterans. And neighborhoods such as Brentwood Westwood closed in. James carr saw a raw deal. They dont care about any of this. They want to turn it into what they want. A Class Action Lawsuit was fired force the government to watch the original deed. You have politicians going around the country saying it is not right for these young men and women to go abroad and fight for their country have to right for a roof over their head and the politicians dont motorcycle something happen. Thats hypocrisy. The department of justice argued the agency was within its rights to rent land off the rat ran s rans. Many powerful neighbors turned again him when he advocated housing Homeless Veterans here. Many of the Democratic Leaders were nowhere to be found. Were you surprised we edd but the bush beck . Yes, i was. Lets put them in the empty buildings. I thought who could be good at that. Two weeks ago, a breakthrough. Were moving Forward Together designing a plan to end homelessness among veterans in the two sides moving from adversaries to potential partners in a matter of weeks. Veterans like robert malone, formerly homeless himself, said it was about time. Lets help our guys. We have been protectioning the country. Lets protect them now. Joining me is the new Veterans Affairs secretary robert mcdonald. Thank you for coming meet the press. The story that tom just did, youve been hands on it. Why did it take a lawsuit to get this solved. I dont know, chuck. I think when i learned about this, i thought this is something that is salved. Ive known the tlifr familiarshriver family for a number of years i knew of ron how quickly can we see l. A. Largest homeless veteran population in the country. How long will we see them in temporary housing . We announced the agreement, we were supposed to give them this week. As a result of that were moving ahead right now. Were putting in more vouchers, more vouchers that will get people into housing. On the property itself we have buildings which are vacant. We need to do seismic work on the buildings. Theyre not safe. Theyre not were moving full would you erect temporary housing tents and things like that . We can. Were looking at all options. Nothing is taken off the table. We need to veteran homelessness since the end of 2015. Were moving full speed ahead. I understand that. It is already an extension of the year of the original goal. The issue of the Homeless Call Center 40500 missed opportunities where the call center didnt refer them to met cal facilities or take care of their problems. You give out your private cell phone number. I have. Is it trickling down . What about this call center. It is not just trickling down. Were making fundamental changes in the department. In terms of leadership. We have held accountable 900 employees no locker with us that were with us before. 900 people have been fired since i have been second. 60 people were fired for ma knit lating waite inginge inginge inging manipulating wait times. So were Holding People accountable. Were nine months since the scandal erupted. The gao general accounting office, named parts of it high risk and identified the following. Ambiguous policies, inadequate oversight and accountability, Information Technology challenges, inadequate training for va stachlt unclear resource needs and allocation priorities. If you took over a company like this, this could could have been in bankruptcy. Would it not . I met with the comptroller general and encouraged him to put us on the high risk list. Were one of the largest businesses in the country. We have a budget, 170 billion. We run over 150 hospitals. I want to improve. Thats what were working to do with our plan called my va. Wait times down 18 nationally. Our backlog down 61 nationally. Homelessness is down. Your now being treated like a politician on the hot seat. You got in a heated exchange. Here with republican congressman mike hoffman. I think thats characteristic of your glossing over the extraordinary problems could be fronted by your department. Actually, ive been here six months, youve been here longer than i have. I will give you my number and ill make some calls. I run a large company. He put out a statement in response. Let me tell you something i havent done. I have never run a federal agency that tolerates corruption the way va has. Ive never been a schill for inept bureaucrats who allowed american heros to die on a medical waiting list while waiting for medical insurance. Most would apologize for a scandal committed against our military servicemen and women. This administration is seemingly inkabul of feeling shame. You were tibcked off at him. He was ticked off at you. Is that appropriate . If you look at the entire hearing what you find is tremendous unanimity, bipartisan support for what were trying to do. That was our budget hearing. You think hes being unfair . There was tremendous unanimity. Chairman miller went around the room and asked within the veteran Service Organization if they have seen a change and everybody to a bernperson, x one, said they had seen a change. Im curious. Can you run a Government Agency like a business . Well talk about it. Can you really do that . I think you can. Thats what youre testing. Youre willing to take ideas you ran and apply them here. Im here to take business practicals and apply them to government and make them work. The movie american sniper, hit home. Great movie. What is the Important Message you think folks should take away from the movie and the story that tells about the plight of veterans. We see that need at va. Were the canary in the coal mine. You run an agency that everybody is rotting to succeed. Good luck to you. Thanks for your help. Thank you. When we come back we got a special treat. Little fun here. 40 years of snl with none other than dana carvey. George bush sr. Here, read my at ally bank no branches equals great rates. Its a fact. Kind of like shopping hungry equals overshopping. Ive had it with my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. The frustration. Covering up. So i talked with my doctor. He prescribed enbrel. Enbrel is clinically proven to provide clearer skin. Many people saw 75 clearance in 3 months. And enbrel helped keep skin clearer at 6 months. Enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. Serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis,lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. Before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether youve been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. You should not start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. Tell your doctor if youre prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have symptoms such as persistent fever, bruising bleeding, or paleness. Finally, clearer skin for more than a few days, weeks or months. Enbrel works for me. Ask your dermatologist if you can have clearer skin with enbrel the real question that needs to be asked is what is it that we can do that is impactful . What the cloud enables is computing to empower cancer researchers. It used to take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome; with the microsoft cloud we can analyze 100 per day. Whatever i can do to help compute a cure for cancer, thats what id like to do. At ally bank no branches equals great rates. Its a fact. Kind of like mute buttons equal danger. That sound good . Not being on this phone call sounds good. Its not muted. Was that you jason . It was geoffrey it was jason. It couldve been brenda. President s day, the day to celebrate our past and present leaders. We name monuments after them, buildings, airports including cities. But did you know there are also 197 counties it and 40 states named after president s . Do you know how they vote . You think they know how they vote. Two people at jefferson and Jackson County democratic, the answer to that and much more about our president ial counties can be found at our [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, weve always been at the forefront of advanced electronics. Providing technology to get more detail. Detect hidden threats. See the whole picture. Process critical information and put it in the hands of our defenders. Reaching constantly evolving threats before they reach us. Thats the value of performance. Northrop grumman. Push your enterprise and you can move the world. But to get from the old way to the new youll need the right it infrastructure. From a partner who knows how to make your enterprise more agile borderless and secure. Hp helps business move on all the possibilities of today. And stay ready for everything that is still to come. I make a lot of purchases for my business. And i get a lot in return with ink plus from chase. Like 60,000 bonus points when i spent 5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. And i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at Office Supply stores. With ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. Travel, gift cards even cash back. And my rewards points wont expire. So you can make owning a business even more rewarding. Ink from chase. So you can. Welcome back. Youve been watching nbc at all over the last couple of days, you know this weekend marks 40 years of saturday night live, which has given us living in a van down by the river. But for political junkies like me, the enduring charm of snl has been its take on politics. And it all started with chevy chases admittedly unfair portrayal of then president gerald ford. It was my understanding there would be no math. Four decades ago, not ready for primetime players debuted a show called saturday night and changed the way the president s and those competing for the job are portrayed on television. Watergate has no place in these debates. And the wake of watergate, america was ready to see political leaders lampooned. Since chevy chase and dan aykroyd tangled, there have been two sets of president ial faceoffs. The televised debates and the sendoffs live on saturday night. Let me sum up on track stay the course, a thousand points of light stay the course. Governor duekakis, rebuttal. I cant believe im losing to this guy. We have been here jabbering, our deficit increased by half million dollars. Before bill clinton took the oath of office, one of the most unforgettable portrayals. Right now were sending food to somalia, but it is not getting to the people who need it because it is being intercepted by warlords. Your mcnuggets from Great Britain to somalia intercepted by warlords. Saturday night live primary had few winners. I will instead ask each candidate to sum up in a single word the best argument for his candidacy. Governor bush . Strategory. Vice president gore . Lock box. The Vice President s staff reportedly made him watch that debate to correct his actual performance. The show has fine tuned the sound bite. I consistently supported the war are in front of pro war audiences. Or awkward body language. How do we as a people come together . Creating fictional doubles that are larger than life. I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy. And i can see russia from my house. While politicians attempt to play along. And now id like to entertain everybody with some fancy pageant walking. I really wish that had been you. 40 years after saturday night lives debut american politics isnt the same. Go see it. You dont see it . It is exaggerated. It is not me, the crazy hand gestures, the pointing, i dont do them. Never said it. In all my years of Government Service i never once said not gonna do it. I sat down with the man we just saw there who brought the first president bush and many other characters to life on snl, dana carvey. You were at least from my generation the political impersonator. Well, i had during the 88 campaign. That was it is funny because jon loveits was doing dukakis. Jon did call me after the election and congratulates me. He called you. He knew i would be in the open playing the president. Playing the president on saturday night live is a cool thing. It took me a year to break it. It took me a long time to find the hook and i was with now senator al franken sitting where you are, jamming, and this rhythm came out of this thing out there, that guy out in that whole area. The hook. Let my play the first clip. We have clips. Lets play it and well come back. Debate 92 the challenge to avoid saying something stupid. Can you see this election is about who can take the heat. It is hot in there. Very hot. The phone in the white house rings at 3 00 a. M. , do you want somebody who answers the phone politely. Hello, this is the president , speak slowly and clearly and tell me what the problem is. Or do you want somebody cranky, someone who says shut up hangs up the phone and sleeps like a baby while the world burns. I hadnt seen that in a long time. I read in the snl book where you only actually said the word prudent or used it in a phrase once. I would make up things about i saw i think i saw him once go its bad, kind of. So that became a huge hook. But the not gonna do it was kind of the spur took it. Instead of not going to do it. On the cue card it would say not gonna do it. I read stories after he lost this basically you were shtick for him, right . He would call you and say, hey i got a few jokes i got a few people i want to play pranks on. He called me. You get called by the president this is the white house operator number one hold for the president. And this is after he lost the election. Everyone thought he was depressed and, you know. Im talking and he goes, well, dana, thought you would come out to the white house, cheer up the troops thinking about his staff and everything. And i was so young and naive at the time, i said, well where would i stay . To the president he goes, stay right here in the white house and we did. We spent two days with him. Had a wonderful time. You also became perot for so many people. Let me play some of my favorite. Yes, sir. You want a ham they say youre a drag on the ticket. They must have been watching a different show. When you were quiet there for an hour, that was world class. Showed you aint just talk, quiet man, a lot going on upstairs. The others went shooting their mouth off. Who am i . Why am i sneer. Youre the admiral, youre taking a joy roid. Was perot easy because it is southern . Perot was the gift, you know. I feel like as a character. Sarah palin and ross perot, just fully formed characters walking on to the they had their own caricature, easy to caricature. We have videotape down the hall, see if you can do anything with it. And i put it on and it is like and i was, like, my god my god. Can i finish one time or are are you you going to interrupt me . Heard from hw, he loved it. Ross perot . He invited me to be with him in dallas the night of the election. Heres the deal. Now, now, you come on down, there will be two of us, see. Two is funnier than one, you know what im talking about . Thats the way he talks. Well go on the road together. Youll campaign one way and ill campaign the other. Real character. This current republican field, anybody jump out . No. Scott walker, jeb bush . There is always a way. Ted cruz. Yeah, i think i could do a ted cruz. I think i i want to keep my powder dry. Ironically i do have the first inkling of my head of you. Well, okay. It is just it is just starting. I dont want to hear it. Youll see it on saturday night live. Right. Dana carvey, pleasure. 36 of all teachers in the u. S. Have been teaching for more than 20 years. What does that mean . Do the math. We need more teachers to lead future generations. The more you know. Welcome back. Big news affecting politics and showbiz this week. Jon stewart is stepping down from the daily show. Want to bring in the panel on this. Liberals are just in mourning, mr. Axelrod about losing stewart. It was a reminder to me that when you think about it political satire dominated by liberals, stewart, oliver colbert, bill maher. Conservative talk radio is limbaugh, mark leven, hugh hewitt. Liberals cant succeed on radio and conservatives arent succeeding in political satire. There is a long history of this. Go back to the beginning of radio and father copland and right wing radio has always been populist, always had huge audiences. There hasnt been a corollary on the left. Satire goes to i think a more elite audience. And therefore it elite. It is the liberals it is the traveling salesman. What is your theory . It is the audience. You have the audience, the conservative audience, our youre talking about the traveling people, talk radio is still a conservative domain and probably will remain that way. As far as comedy goes, you know, Entertainment Industry has been filled by you think they dont reward the conservatives . That said jon stewart had a couple of years after barack obama was elected where he didnt go after barack obama, but, boy he did in the final few years. He went after him on immigration. He had a skit about him being an emperor. He went after him after benghazi. He went after wherever he could find, including the news media. You think we should see a woman replace jon stewart . Oh yes. I know im supposed to say yes but i hope it is somebody really funny. Thats why they succeed is because liberals put funny first. And i think conservatives put politics first. It is time for women to take the big seat, the big chair. I think we are the ones to help make that spoon full of sugar make the medicine go down the medicine being politics. Liberal talk radio is hard. It doesnt catch on as much. It doesnt, youre right. Conservative talk moves, but liberal talk is not it is not as big as it used to be. Thats all. This was an eclectic show. We loved it. We have fun. Well be back next week. Because if its sunday, its meet the press. Good morning. Coming up on early today, dangerous weather in the eastern u. S. Heavy snow 60mileanhour wind gusts and temperatures that feel like 25 below. Egypt bombs isis targets in libya after the terror group claims to have beheaded 21 egyptian hostages. Reports of one of the biggest banking heists ever. Plus live fronew york, its saturday night one night only. Some of the biggest names in comedy come together to celebrate 40 years of snl. It is monday, february 16th. Early today starts right now. Well good morning, everybody. Happy monday to you. Thanks for joining us. Im betty nguyen. Much of the northeast is in a deep freeze yet again this morning. Parts of new england are buried