Captioning funded by cbs and ford. We go further, so you can. Kroft there is a perception in the middle east that the United States is in retreat, that we pulled our troops out of iraq, and isis has moved in and taken over much of that territory. The situation in afghanistan is very precarious and the taliban is on the march again. I think its fair to say, steve, that if. Kroft let me just finish the thought. They say youre projecting a weakness, not a strength. Youre saying they, but youre not citing too many folks. Kroft no, ill cite. Ill cite if you want me to. Id say the saudis. Id say the israelis. Id say a lot of our friends in the middle east. Id say everybody in eur. Everybody in the Republican Party. laughs kroft well, you want me to keep going . Yeah. Kroft as youll see tonight, president obama was happy to keep going, taking questions about politics, putin, trump, hillarys emails and a lot more. What else you got . My failure to Say Something can only be described as cowardice. I was a coward. Whitaker thats former prosecutor marty stroud apologizing for sending an innocent man to death row for 30 years. Last year, glenn ford was finally exonerated and released by the current District Attorney, who still defends the system. Have you no compassion for what mr. Ford has been through . Well, you dont know me at all, do you . But you have no problem asking that question. Whitaker no, i am asking because i am seeking an answer. Im not in the compassion business. Kroft im steve kroft. Stahl im lesley stahl. Safer im morley safer. Whitaker im bill whitaker. Pelley im scott pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 minutes. Why pause a spontaneous moment to take a pill . Or stop to find a bathroom . Cialis for daily use, is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction like needing to go frequently, day or night. 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Well be with you shortly. Yeah right. Xerox Predictive Analytics help companies provide a better and faster customer experience. Hello mr. Kent. Can i rebook your flight . Im here Customer Care can work better. With xerox. Wait im here mr. Kent . Kroft its been a week of rising tensions in syria with russia stepping up air strikes and naval bombardments in support of syrian president bashar al assad, and in some cases, against rebel groups supported by the United States. Its complicated an already precarious situation and aggravated an already contentious relationship between president obama and his russian counterpart, vladimir putin. Add to that the president ial primary campaigns underway at home, and it seemed like a good time to talk about all of it with the president. Which we did on tuesday in the roosevelt room at the white house, a lively, spirited discussion that began with isis. The last time we talked was this time last year, and the situation in syria and iraq had begun to worsen visavis isis. You had just unveiled a plan to provide air support for troops in iraq, and also some air strikes in syria, and the training and equipping of a moderate syrian force. You said that this would degrade and eventually destroy isis. Barack obama over time. Kroft over time. Its been a year, and. Going to be done in a year. Kroft no, but you said. Obama theres a question in here somewhere. Kroft theres a question in here. I mean, if you look at the situation and youre looking for progress, its not easy to find. You could make the argument that the only thing thats changed really is is the death toll, which has continued to escalate, and the number of refugees fleeing syria into europe. Obama syria has been a difficult problem for the entire World Community and, obviously, most importantly, for the people of syria themselves that have been devastated by this civil war, caught between a brutal dictator who drops barrel bombs on his own population, and thinks that him clinging to power is more important than the fate of his country; and a barbaric, ruthless organization in isil and some of the al qaeda affiliates that are operating inside of syria. And what weve been able to do take away some of the key land that they were holding, to push back, particularly in iraq, against some Population Centers that they threatened. And in syria, weve been able to disrupt a number of their operations. But what we have not been able to do so far and im the first one to acknowledge this is to change the dynamic inside of syria, and the goal here has been to find a way in which we can help moderate opposition on the ground. But weve never been under any illusion that, militarily we ourselves can solve the problem inside of syria. Kroft i want us to take some of these things one by one. Things. Youve managed to achieve a stalemate. Whats going to happen to isis . Somebody has to take them on. Whats going on right now is not working. I mean, theyre still occupying big chunks of iraq. Theyre still occupying a good chunk of syria. Whos going to get rid of them . Obama over time, the community of nations will all get rid of them, and we will be leading getting rid of them. But we are not going to be able to get rid of them unless there is an environment inside of syria and in portions of iraq in which local populations, local sunni populations are working in a concerted way with us to get rid of them. Kroft you have been talking about the moderate opposition in syria. It seems very hard to identify. And you talked about the frustrations of. Of trying to find some and train them. You got a half a billion dollars from congress to train and equip 5,000, and at the end, according to the commander of centcom, you got 50 people, most of whom are. Are dead or deserted. He said four or five left. Obama steve, this is why ive been skeptical from the getgo about the notion that we were going to effectively create this proxy army inside of syria. My goal has been to try to test the proposition, can we be able to train and equip a moderate opposition thats willing to fight isil . And what weve learned is that, as long as assad remains in power, it is very difficult to get those folks to focus their attention on isil. Kroft if you were skeptical of the program to find and identify, train and equip moderate syrians, why did you go through the program . Obama well, because part of what we have to do here, steve, is to try different things. Because we also have partners on the ground that are invested and interested in seeing some sort of resolution to this problem and. Kroft and they wanted you to do it. Obama well, no, thats not what i said. I think it is important for us to make sure that we explore all the various options that are available. Kroft i know you dont want to talk about this. Obama no, i. Im happy to talk about it. Kroft i want to talk about this program, because it would seem to show. I mean, if you expect 5,000 and you get five, it shows that somebody someplace along the line made some sort of a serious miscalculation. Obama you know, the. Steve, let me just say this. Kroft its an embarrassment. Obama look, theres no doubt that it did not work. And one of the. One of the challenges that ive had throughout this heartbreaking situation inside of syria is. Is that youll have people insist that, you know, all you have to do is send in a few, you know, truckloads full of arms and people are ready to fight. Then, when you start a train andequip program and it doesnt work, then people say, well, why didnt it work . Or, if it had just started three months earlier, it wouldve worked. Kroft but you said yourself you never believed in this. Obama well. But steve, what i have also said is that, surprisingly enough, it turns out that in a situation that is as volatile and with as many players as there are inside of syria, there arent any silver bullets. And this is precisely why ive been very clear that americas priorities has to be number one, keeping the American People safe. Number two, we are prepared to work both diplomatically and where we can to support moderate opposition that can help convince the russians and iranians to put pressure on assad for a transition. But that what we are not going to do is to try to reinsert ourselves in a military campaign inside of syria. Lets take the situation in afghanistan, which i suspect youll ask. Ask about. But i. I wanted to use this as an example. Kroft all right. I feel like im being filibustered, mr. President. Obama no, no, no, no, no. Steve, i. I think if you want to roll back the tape, youve been giving me long questions and statements, and now im responding to them. So lets. If you ask me big, openended questions, expect big, openended answers. Lets take the example of. Of afghanistan. Weve been there for 13 years now, close to 13 years. And its still hard in afghanistan. Today, after all the investments we have there, and we still have thousands of troops there. So the notion that after a year in syria, a country where the existing government hasnt invited us in, but is actively keeping us out, that somehow we would be able to solve this quickly is. Kroft we didnt say quickly. Obama . Is an illusion and. Kroft nobodys expecting that, mr. President. Obama well, the. No, i understand, but what im. The simple point im making, steve, is that the solution that were going to have inside of syria is ultimately going to depend not on the United States putting in a bunch of troops there. Resolving the underlying crisis is going to be something that requires, ultimately, the key players there to recognize that there has to be a transition to new government. And in the absence of that, its not going to work. Kroft one of the key players now is russia. Obama yeah. Kroft a year ago when we did this interview, there was some saberrattling between the United States and russia on the ukrainian border. Now, its also going on in syria. You said a year ago that the United States. America leads. Were the indispensable nation. Mr. Putin seems to be challenging that leadership. Obama in what way . Let. Lets think about this. Kroft well, hes moved. Hes moved troops into syria, for one. Hes got people on the ground. Two, the russians are conducting military operations in. In the middle east for the First Time Since world war ii. Obama so thats. So thats. Kroft . Bombing the people that we are supporting. Obama so thats leading, steve . Let me ask you this question. When i came into office, ukraine was governed by a corrupt ruler who was a stooge of mr. Putin. Syria was russias only ally in the region. And today, rather than being able to count on their support and maintain the base they had in syria, which theyve had for a long time, mr. Putin now is devoting his own troops, his own military, just to barely hold together by a thread his sole ally. And in ukraine. Kroft hes challenging your leadership, mr. President. Hes challenging your leadership. Obama well, steve, ive got to tell you, if. If you think that running your economy into troops in, in order to prop up your only ally is leadership, then weve got a different definition of leadership. My definition of leadership would be leading on climate change, an International Accord that potentially well get in paris. My definition of leadership is mobilizing the entire World Community to make sure that iran doesnt get a nuclear weapon. And with respect to the middle east, weve got a 60country coalition that isnt suddenly lining up around russias strategy. To the contrary, they are arguing that, in fact, that strategy will not work. Kroft my point is. Was not that he was leading; my point is that he was challenging your leadership. And he has very much involved himself in the situation. Can you imagine anything happening in syria of any significance at all without the russians now being involved in it and having a part of it . Obama but that was true before. Keep in mind that, for the last five years, the russians have provided arms, provided financing, as have the iranians, as has hezbollah. Kroft but they havent been troops on the ground. Obama and the fact that they had to do this is not an indication of strength, its an indication that their strategy did not work. Kroft you dont think. Obama you dont. You dont think that mr. Putin wouldve preferred having mr. Assad be able to solve this problem without him having to send a bunch of pilots and money that they dont have . Kroft did you know he was going to do all this when you met with him in new york . Obama well, we had seen. We had pretty good intelligence. We watch. Kroft so you knew he was already planning to do it. Obama we knew that he was planning to provide the military assistance that assad was needing because they were nervous about a potential imminent collapse of the regime. Kroft you say hes doing this out of weakness. There is a perception in the middle east among our adversaries, certainly, and even among some of our allies that the United States is in retreat, that we pulled our troops out of iraq, and isis has moved in and taken over much of that territory. The situation in afghanistan is very precarious and the taliban is on the march again. And isis controls a large part of syria. Obama i think it. I think its fair to say, steve, that if. Kroft they. Let me just finish the thought. They say your. They say youre projecting weakness, not a strength. Obama youre. Youre saying they, but youre not. Youre not citing too many folks. But. But here. Kroft no, ill cite. Ill cite if you want me to. Obama here. Yes. Kroft id say the saudis. Id say the israelis. Id say a lot of our friends in the middle east. Id say everybody in eur. Everybody in the Republican Party. Well, you want me to keep going . laughs obama yeah. If you are. If youre citing the Republican Party, i think its fair to say that there is nothing ive done right over the last seven and a half years. And i think thats right. It. And i also think what is true is that these are the same folks who were making an argument for us to go into iraq and who, in some cases, still have difficulty acknowledging and steve, i guarantee you that there are factions inside of the middle east, and i guess factions inside the Republican Party, who think that we should send endless numbers of troops into the middle east, that the only measure of strength is us sending back several hundred thousand troops, that we are going to impose a peace, police the region, and that the fact that we might have more deaths of u. S. Troops thousands of troops killed, thousands of troops injured, spend another trillion dollars they would have no problem with that. There are people who would like to see us do that. And unless we do that, theyll suggest were in retreat. Kroft theyll say youre throwing in the towel. Obama no. Steve, we have an enormous presence in the middle east. We have bases and we have skies. And we are currently supporting iraq as it tries to continue to build up its forces. But the problem that i think a lot of these critics never answer is, whats in the interest of the United States of america, and. And at what point do we say that, here are the things we can do well to protect america. But here are the things that we also have to do in order to make sure that america leads and america is strong and stays number one. And if in fact the only measure is for us to send another 100,000 or 200,000 troops into syria or back into iraq, or perhaps into libya, or perhaps into yemen, and our goal somehow is that we are now going to be not just the police, but the governors of this region. That would be a bad strategy, steve. And i think that if we make that mistake again, then shame on us. Kroft do you think the worlds a safer place . Obama america is a safer place. I think that there are places, obviously, like syria that are not safer than when i came into office. But in terms of us protecting ourselves against terrorism, in terms of us making sure that we are strengthening our alliances, in terms of our reputation around the world, absolutely were stronger. Kroft on friday, the pentagon ended the program to train and equip Syrian Rebels that the president told us did not work. In a moment, he talks about donald trump, Hillary Clintons emails, and joe bidens possible run for president. Sponsored by glor good evening. The government is expected to announce thursday there will be no cost of living increase in Social Security benefits next year. Twitter is not commenting on reports of companywide layoffs this week. And the 200yearold steinbach Nutcracker Company in germany has filed for