Dexter filkins was among the journalists who met with assad. I am pleased to have him just back from damascus. How did this happen . Exactly who was in the room and what were the ground rules . Dexter the Syrian Government, president assad, because they are feeling pretty good about themselves they are feeling stronger than they had at any point. Charlie that is because of the support of the russians and hezbollah. Dexter they had a conference in damascus. They invited a bunch of journalists, think tank people to come. From that, they just selected a couple of people to come and meet the president. I didnt know that was going to happen. Charlie you went to the conference and ended up in the meeting with him. Who else was in the meeting . Dexter some think tank people. Three to four. We all got into a van and we go into a secure area with lots of checkpoints and blast walls. Suddenly, we were at his house. Charlie he welcomed you to his house . You sit down. Tell me what is the status on the ground as we speak. Dexter you mentioned at the top of the show what an utterly catastrophic war it is. A halfmillion dead, whole state is disintegrated. Half the country is displaced from their homes. The migration crisis. It is the great catastrophe of our time. I think everyone thought, most of the world, probably assad himself thought he was going to go around 2012, 2013. When you have seen since them is massive intervention by the iranians, hezbollah and finally by the russians which has been very decisive. Charlie do they simply support hezbollah . Dexter they are people on the ground. They are directing the fight. Hes busy in iraq right now. Theyve really, i think it is fair to say, changed the situation on the ground so probably pretty close to 70 of the population lives in areas controlled by the government. Probably something close to three quarters of the people left in syria. So many people have left. Charlie what is happening in aleppo . The russians said that he would have some kind of ceasefire. Dexter all of that is a prelude to what is medieval fight to the death. Eastern aleppo is cut off, under siege by assads government. They have been bombing it relentlessly, bombing hospitals. It is horrible. Essentially in the few days of ceasefire announced by the russians was the view a few days. Anyone in the ones to leave, get out. After that, we are going in. Charlie retaking all of it . Dexter yeah, i think we should stand back for a second and look at what happened. The goal for assad and the russians is to capture all of aleppo which was the largest city in syria. Essentially you have most of the population under government control. You have this long strip of cities going from aleppo to damascus over to the mediterranean. Then, isis is relentlessly being crushed and squeezed in the east. Raqqa will probably fall soon. Whoever becomes president of the United States is essentially going to be faced with we now control most of the country. Charlie we need a government to regain control of the country. That is what you think the president of the United States would face. Dexter assad finds himself in a very strong position. I think it is why he had a bunch of journalists there. They havent had any american journalists in syria for years. Charlie they have not let any american journalists in . Dexter they have not been granting visas to anyone. In two years, nothing. Charlie just to get into the country . Dexter to get into the government controlled parts of syria. The only way to get in its possible. Basically, the only journalists getting in have been going to the northeast and a few people are still braving the Turkish Border which is nuts. It is a dangerous place. Charlie i want to go back to raqqa. Dexter i was just there. Charlie what did assad say . You asked him what he thought about being called a war criminal . Dexter yeah, he it is kind of anticlimactic when you go to a meeting like this because you are expecting something more. I think it is sort of the effect. Hes not he may be a monster but he does not look like it. It is like a clerk or a lawyer or a banker. Its slightly unexpected. So, we were sitting together in a small room. I asked him about being a war criminal. He said i dont take it personally. The west is against me. Ive become a headline for them. Im the bad guy and the rebels are the good guys. He went on to say he painted this kind of worldview very different from anything that you and i would recognize. Isis is a creature of the United States. The United States, turkey, saudi arabia are supporting isis. He is holding the line against isis. Charlie what his is argument that makes isis a creation of the United States and saudi arabia . Dexter this is a story they tell themselves. You have the United States, saudi arabia, turkey it is true they have been supported rebel groups who are fighting assad. The United States is not supporting isis. American soldiers are dying. Charlie the alnusra group . Dexter maybe not primarily, but there are so many groups fighting syria. You have alnusra, the al qaeda affiliate. Charlie we support supporting them. Dexter we dont support alnusra, but a lot of the money and arms that have been pumped into syria has gone to them. That allows president assad and the Syrian Government to say look, the United States and all of their allies are supporting the evil isis. Charlie they say that because you are fighting me and therefore supporting them because my enemy is them. Dexter basically. Charlie it is really rebel forces trying to overthrow him. Dexter this is not a civil war. There is no great grievance the Syrian People have against this government. This is a war driven by foreigners. Charlie it is in fact true after the arab spring and he engaged in the civil war, that is when al qaeda and isis rushed over there because they thought they could take advantage of the situation. Dexter yes. The war now is 5. 5 years long. The war looked very different in 2012 than it does now. I think the argument, we will never know the argument for western intervention back then was always lets support the moderate groups before the crazies get there. I think that moment has passed. Charlie that was a critical moment . Dexter if there was a window, it was early on, 2012, 2013. There was that pretty critical moment when hillary clinton, secretary of state, petreus and gates all said lets arm the rebels and do a big push the moderate rebels. The president basically said no. Charlie does he continue to say no . Dexter the United States is doing some stuff, but it is not decisive in any way. I think the saudis and the turks have been doing much more than we have been doing. The fact remains that today, the strongest rebel groups by far are isis and alnusra. They dont like each other, but they are groups we would never support ever. So, that is how assad can view himself as sort of that. Charlie the state Department Says we dont have any leverage on the ground so there is no leverage. Dexter i think that is where we are. I think assad today is stronger than he has been at any point since this war began. Charlie what is Vladimir Putin win . Dexter he wins influence. Charlie they owed him. Dexter the goal of the United States was to remove assad. President obama said that many times because the government believes he is the person driving the violence. I dont think assad is going anywhere. He is entrenched. He is stronger than he is ever been. He has the russians on his side. Charlie there was a piece this week saying the solution was to split it up. Dexter it is already broken. The question is will it ever come together . It is like iraq. It is interesting how all of this connects, syria and iraq. You have the big battle that is happening now in mosul where the United States is supporting the Iraqi Government fighting mosul to expel isis from mosul. I think what is likely to happen, lets say mosul falls which isis is basically driven out. What happens then . I think a lot of the isis guys will retreat into syria. I think a lot of the Iranianbacked Shia coalitions fighting in iraq against isis are going into syria. So, essentially, that battle will move into syria. Assad actually talked about that. Charlie what did he say . It was going to happen . Dexter again, he was kind of it was conspiracy, but he said the whole americans fighting isis is all theater. What they will do is push isis into syria. Charlie the iraqis are leading the fight in mosul . Dexter yeah, they are. The americans are in the sky dropping bombs. What is really problematic about what is happening in mosul is you have this really large number of shiite militias fighting on the side of the Iraqi Government, the United States. Trained and directed by the iranians. The Republican Guard is on the ground in northern iraq. Charlie will they be on the ground in syria . Dexter they have been, absolutely. I think what is likely to happen, mosul will probably fall. Isis will be pushed out and then the iranians have been trying to get an Overland Route to syria for years. They were pushing on the kurds to give it to them and they said no. Charlie therefore, they would move right into lebanon. Dexter if you look at the map, you basically have lebanon and the mediterranean, syria and assad, and then you have iraq. You eventually have this iranians fighting for many years. It is looking pretty good for them right now. Again, we are mixed up in this i think that if there is a legitimate criticism to be made about what is happening in mosul right now it is that the United States is fully knowledgeable of the role of the iranian militias fighting isis. A lot of these guys you can name these people the leader of an iranianbacked coalition. Hes iraqi. Charlie iranian militias or are they shia militias . They shia militias . Dexter he kidnapped and executed seven american soldiers in 2007. These are people we have been trying to kill. Charlie do we have an option . Could we have kept them out . Dexter sure. All the options are horrible. Charlie it has always been a problem with the iraqi prime ministers. Dexter it is a mess. I think if you were sitting in the white house and say we have to get isis out of mosul, how . The iraqi army is a joke. They disintegrated. Charlie the brunt of the fighting is coming from iraqi shia militias . They are doing the brunt of the fighting . Dexter a lot of the fighting. Typically what has happened like an fallujah, you have american airstrikes. Iraqi special forces who are very good. And then, you have iraqi army and militias. What is really troubling to me is what is going to happen in mosul once they go into the city. They will be able to go inside the city and then what will happen . You will have these very sectarian militias going into a sunni city and being pushed by a very extremist regime in tehran. The americans will be hardpressed to control that. That is the problem. Isis are evil. Weve made this kind of ugly deal. That is kind of what we have done. Charlie where are the turks . Are they fighting . Do they want to fight . Dexter they are trying to maintain their influence. They have crossed the border into syria and iraq. Charlie is it possible that mosul go . Dexter i think so. It is a question of how long it will take. I think a long time. Charlie what is a longtime . Dexter weeks, months. Charlie you think it is possible if they take mosul rather than later, they can then take raqqa . Dexter i think that is the plan. Charlie ive often wondered if that was what the president really wanted to do. The battle against isis and we retook mosul and all the land they had. They have no caliphate, they have nothing. They need to send people into the urban areas of western europe and the United States. Dexter what has extinguished isis all the groups that came before it . They held territory. Mosul is the biggest city they have. The second largest city in iraq. Raqqa is their capital. Those are the two poles. What happens then . I think probably what happens is isis retreats and melts away into the desert, do some urban pockets and essentially becomes what al qaeda in iraq was. Charlie telling them to fight to the last person. Dexter yeah, which is interesting because a lot of people thought baghdadi was dead, but he sounds alive and well. Charlie how did the conversation end with assad . Dexter i think he made it clear to us that he is not going anywhere. He talks about this election they had in 2014 where he got Something Like 90 of the vote. He said im the captain of the ship. The captain of the ship does not abandon, does not jump overboard in the middle of a storm. Im steering the ship. Charlie is by definition the reality we are looking at mean the obama policy failed . Dexter there are two policies. One is syria and the other is iraq. Weve kind of charlie this was about syria. Dexter we are preserving the iraqi state and holding that together. Charlie or was the president right . Dexter i think president obama has made it clear that he thinks if we try to do more in syria, we are just going to make it worse. You get yourself involved down in the weeds in the middle east and you are just going to get tangled up and make it worse, but president obama has been very clear assad must go. That is the overall objective of american policy and has been. Charlie since the airstrikes began. Dexter i think he believes the Assad Government is the root of the problem. Assad has not gone anywhere. The United States has clearly failed in that objective, i think. Charlie the second paragraph of your piece in the 5. 5 years since the uprising began, it has been the most catastrophic war of our young century and assad is the most vilified National Leader in the world. As many as 400,000 syrians are dead and nearly half the countrys population has been driven from their homes. Hundreds of thousands have gone to europe, hundreds of thousands have drowned in the mediterranean. Most of the governments in the west including the United States have severed diplomatic relations. President obama has asked him repeatedly to step down. He has stayed in power things in large part to the wests reluctance to involve itself in the conflict and military intervention on behalf of russia, aleppo. It is largely in ruins. The government is besieging the last enclave outside its grip. Many people look at as the catastrophe of our time. Dexter i think so. Lets say assad stays. What do you have in syria . It is broken, it is completely fragmented. Assad may have the Population Centers but half the country has been driven from their homes. I dont know how he, the russians, us, i dont know how you put the country back together. Charlie thank you for coming, dexter filkins. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Charlie it is the final weekend before the president ial election and the only thing certain is voters will go to the polls on tuesday. Where is the race going into its final days . Jonathan karl of abc news talked with his friend mike allen of politico. Jonathan its great to be here on the friday before election day with mike allen. Lets look at how this race is right now. We will start with trump tower. Mike if you are in trump tower, you finally feel you have oxygen. The comey letter has left trump off the map. Republicans are still very skeptical, but they are quite optimistic. Jonathan how does the trump team think they will win this . Mike they have what he has had since the beginning which is momentum and excited. Going into this crazy weekend, if you have momentum and optimism, suddenly it means less and the National Mood means a lot. I know you are hearing that same thing out of brooklyn, the Clinton Campaign headquarters. They know they cannot mess this up, but there is a lot of comfort with what is going on. They feel like this is bait. People are not changing their minds and there is four reasons that clinton remains the favorite despite what you see on the web or have in your conversations. One is early voting which has been favoring democrats. Second, it is a big theory of the Brooklyn Team that we have democrats coming home to vote for a democrat and republicans voting for republicans. As long as that happens, as long as trump does not have some swing voters, she is fine. You have been out traveling the country. Trump does not have the infrastructure and a get out the vote on the ground effort that any republican would want him to have. Fourth, there is a strong feeling among hillary voters that they are going to be able to take the votes they have, the early votes, and the natural electorate voter advantage she has. 40 of people will vote before election day. Jonathan my sense is that the clinton team feels a lot more optimistic about florida than they did a couple of weeks ago. Mike one of the ways we see that is from the Republican Senate polls. That is the best window in what is happening. They have real operations, real polling. It is state after state, including florida and ohio. We see the republican candidates like marco rubio in florida are way ahead of trump. That is another reason that trump could win. Why do people go to the races . The day after, november 9, who are the republicans who will be standing tall . Jonathan who is the head of the pack . Mike i think you want to be somebody that is not in the middle of this. Senator tom cotton of arkansas, senator ben sasse, a nikki haley. The one person who was involved in this who is getting good buzz from republicans and could be better off is mike pence. Hes the one person that is around washington. He could be in a better place. He said he was proud to be Donald Trumps running mate. The general election of 2020, a trumpclinton rematch. He loves being part of a movement and he will form a trump party withi