Odds since the beginning of august, thats when they were blacked out on time warner systems in los angeles, new york and dallas and smaller market as well. Well talk to a media analyst in the next half hour to see who came out as the big winner on this. Cbs, kind of thumping its chest. Well talk more about that. First, back to the tech story overnight out of europe, jon fortt talked to microsoft ceo Steve Ballmer an hour ago and joins us from san jose with the highlights. This caught a lot of people by surprise, jon. Not entirely surprising that microsoft would look at perhaps stephen elop as a ceo candidate, but the timing of picking up all of nokias devices and Services Business quite surprising. All the talk on twitter also over in germany where there is a major tech show kicking off that will be following throughout the week. I spoke to Steve Ballmer about an hour ago, first on cnbc interview. We talked about the join up of the two companies, we talked about stephen elop. Listen to what Steve Ballmer had to say about the impact on the windows ecosystem. We think our acquisition of nokia will actually create interesting opportunities for other windows devicemakers, not just on the phone side, but particularly on the tablet and pc side, where Companies Like dell and lenovo and hp and many, many others have been fundamental to our success. What is good for Windows Phone, we think will be good for the overall windows ecosystem. So trying to make it very clear there, hes not trying to block out other hardware manufacturers for working with Windows Phone or windows 8. Still wants to welcome them. That strategy reminiscent of what google tried to do post the Motorola Mobility acquisition. I asked him specifically about what microsofts getting with stephen elop, the ceo of nokia until this transaction was announced, he has stepped down to a Senior Vice President position over the devices and services group. Microsoft plans to put him in charge of all of hardware once this deal closes, which they hope will happen before april. That would be not just the existing nokia business, also xbox and any other hardware that microsoft is working on. Ballmer said he thinks very highly of elop, that obviously he knew him when elop worked for him three years ago, but now has gotten to know him better as a partner. I asked him specifically whether he expects elop to be a candidate for ceo. He was very politic about that question, saying the board will have a private process, but implied, of course, he, among others inside and outside will be considered. Guys . I got two questions for you this morning. One is, spending 7 billion to buy elop seems look a crazy idea, but if you dont take elop, in a year from now, does elop leave and what does that mean . Well, you got to think it would be a mess in a way if they dont take elop after this because he knows nokias business better than anybody, and what microsoft is doing, taking on the 32,000 workers with devices and services is expending their workforce by a third. Thats a lot. And it is a geographically distributed third that theyre taking on. It is also quite a bit of revenue, very little profit, but besides just nokias business and stephen elop, microsoft is also getting access to a lot of patents in this transaction. That could turn out to be key. Nokia has a number of patents in phone design itself and i just talked to an analyst this morning who is over in europe who says this changes the economics of smartphones for microsoft. Theyre going to be able to make a cheaper smartphone than anybody else. I want to mention, in just a few minutes, in 25 minutes or so, im going to have a first on cnbc interview with the interim president and the cfo of nokia. Hes going to join us and talk about things from nokias perspective. Jon, what kind of job did elop do at nokia . Because nokia shares suffered while he was there. What do you think of his leadership there . They did. You know, becky, when he first came in, he had this infamous burning platform memo, which a lot of people interpreted as the new ceo is coming in and saying were screwed. It sent the stock tumbling. A lot of people criticized him for that. He basically said were going to bet it all on Windows Phone, but strategically, it doesnt seem to have been that bad a move. And, of course, it caused their business to tumble quickly, but they had a very clear view of what their strategy was. Unlike blackberry, which seemed to sort of dither for a while, fiddle while rome burned, nokia was focused on the strategy that led them to this point. If you like that strategy, it made sense. If you think that elop was a manchurian candidate who destroyed nokia so microsoft could buy it, then, you know, still not such a great deal. Overall, the shares, how did they do over the three years he was there. Im trying to look that up right now. Down quite a bit. I know that ive seen the 85 number as far as how far down nokia shares have gone. I dont think thats specifically from elops tenure, that might be from the peak. But nokia used to looks like they were 12 or 14 down to 3. 90 now. Im sorry, jon, im going to interrupt, the whole thing seems crazy. 80 of microsofts business is already on nokia phones. So what what are you really buying here . In truth . Beyond the patents. I get the patents. Youre not getting maps. Maps is staying at nokia. Thats one of the few things they have that i see as a value in a race with google. Do you see any strategy shift, the idea theyll be able to act faster. Theyre already in cahoots together to begin with. Theyre getting a tenyear license with the option to renew for perpetual license for the price, for both maps and the other technology that theyre currently using. They get that. Theyre getting access to the patents also. You know, in terms of in terms of hardware, theyre getting to reaccelerate potentially the window phone ecosystem. Nokia has done better than htc, better than samsung, now as part of microsoft, arguably, they get to do that. If you dont like the google motorola deal, chances are that doesnt make sense, chances are this one doesnt make that much sense to you either because the rational behind both between patents and the hardware business and pushing it all forward quickly is pretty similar. This is, to me, this tells me that mobile devices are going to be important. Right . Yes, indeed. This is all this is all you can see it through the lens of reaction of what apple did combining hardware and software and moving forward quickly. Microsoft, i quickly saw, like a 7 billion goodwill writedown. Im not sure when. Like how long what do you give it . A couple of 24 months. I want to watch. I dont want to watch i like to watch. But i want to watch. I want the watch. I want a mobile iwatch m mapping you should have seen my Global Mapping going out to the hamptons. Rerouting me, traffic, construction. Did it work . It is unbelievable. I did the same thing. It is so good, i even did a welcome back. Thank you. You didnt sit in traffic . It reroutes you. And people you know, in the old days, it is like ill leave now, im not sure when ill get there, depends on traffic. You have the the arrival time and it will change depending on whether someone, you know, someone, you know, gets a flat tire, it is amazing. I want to be dick tracy too. You want to i can already do that, i dont wear a watch. A little bit of corporate news. Youre going to intro that cfo, the nokia cfo. Did you hear jon. Jon, say it for him again. Just so hes gone. All right. You want to try it . We can practice. Timo ihamuotila. They just said forget it. We have other very Important News beyond the corporate world this morning, other big top story, the debate in washington over how the u. S. Can handle the situation in syria. Today, the Senate ForeignRelations Committee will be hearing testimony on why the Obama Administration thinks it is critical to act. Secretary of state john kerry and defense secretary chuck hagel will be appearing before that panel. John harwood joins us this morning from oklahoma where hes been traveling with congressman tim cole. Good morning to you. In oklahoma, because the president of the United States has put the fate of the policy in syria in the hands of members of congress. You mentioned the Senate ForeignRelations Committee, it seems pretty likely that the Democratic Senate will give the president the authority that he seeks to act in syria. The house is much more of a question. This is a district in outside of Oklahoma City that voted 21 against president obama, tom cole, the congressman, is supportive of the military, has an air force base in the district, but hes got to hear the case for why we should commit u. S. Forces to this enterprise, and even if it is not boots on the ground, even if it is just cruise missiles, this is a pretty grave decision for members of congress, republican and democrat alike, and im going to be following tom cole meeting with the chamber of commerce in this building behind me. Hes going to go to the air force base, talk to officers there and then have a town meeting tonight and well get to take some of the temperature of exactly how much the president is going to be able to get congress to go along with what he wants to do. What is the timing of all this. Congress is not back in session until next week. Is there a chance they get brought back early and once they do, then what happens . No, they wont get brought back early. What is happening early is the Senate Committee hearings i would expect that the senate would vote first when we get back. They reconvene on the night. And the house debate will begin. Dont know how long that is going to last. It is going to be very contentious. You have all sorts of factions in both the democratic and republican caucuses from, you know, the war hawks like Lindsey Graham and john mccain who think the president is not proposing enough military action to people, liberal democrats, rand paul, the libertarians who think we have no business getting involved in syria. And in the middle are a whole lot of people who might be inclined to follow the leader in chief. So this is a very, very difficult situation that the president has created by going to congress where it appeared last week that he was going to act on his own and people were bracing for that, but he decided he needed a little bit more support behind him, especially after the British Parliament decided that britain was not going to support the United States. And thats why we are at this point. Must have been just up late thinking about all the different facets and nuances. I know i have been about strange bedfellows here and seeing a president who won the peace prize suddenly. Im getting deja vu thinking about previous president s that tried to galvanize support for strike in the middle east and here it is, president barack obama trying to galvanize his own party for really more his own party than republicans for going along on this. How much truth is there hes moved to where there would be more of an objective now to get man cane on board. Is the size of the strike, the talk widening that maybe we will arm some rebels and maybe we will try to tip the balance over there instead of, i dont know what it was before, just a punishment. I dont understand the objective. There was i guarantee you there is no objective here. The problem is, what do you want to have . There is 1200 different rebel groups that are fighting. The Free Syrian Army is is secular, it is the one that mccain talked about a lot, met with these people, these are good people, but more radicals have come in. I was sending emails to richard while obama was 45 minutes late to tell us what he was going to do and unbelievable. John, it is a morase, i went around and around trying to figure out what the right answer is. I dont know how congressional leaders this is why it is so problematic to go to congress. You now have got 535 potential commanders in chief instead of one. And, you know, what we have become used to in the United States, president s, when they decide a military action is in the u. S. National interest, going ahead, maybe seeking support from congress, maybe seeking their approval after it happened, but not making a decision saying you need to act and then going to congress. So hes going to have to then make an argument and get 218 votes in the house and 50 in the United States senate and it is not going to be easy. John mccain, joe, to answer your question, hes not the sweet spot. The sweet spot is people who want to narrow this resolution who say no, no, we dont want to get too involved. The dominant view is not to get involved. Here we have a guy if we believe our intelligence, assad ordered this event. So at that point, we have already said, regime change is something we want to do. That was a year ago. Or two years. Regime change was something we wanted to do. Suddenly we see the evidence, hes actually killed 400 plus children and over 1,000 people with gas, and suddenly we were tiptoeing around the idea of regime change. We want to go in there, want to punish him, but dont want to sway it either way because were worried about the al qaeda elements. You can make the case, first thing we do is get this guy can no longer be there. He violated International Law, a war criminal, needs to be brought to trial. You can get much more because of the iraq hangover we have, or whatever you want to call it, cant do it. The u. N. Is not on board. Arab league saying different things. Go ahead, john. Sounds like you want to lead ap a platoon over there in damascus. Pardon me. Sounds like you want to lead a platoon over there in damascus. Not at all. I refer to engel on some of this stuff, just to say im going to hit you, but not hurt you, made no sense and im glad he put it off and decided to go to congress. Because that, you know, the ramifications of what could happen when youre not doing anything and terrible things can happen, with hezbollah or iran or Something Like that, and you dont know the outcome, why do it if youre not sure it is going to accomplish anything. You just identified the challenge of the policy is to hit him and hurt him. Not hit him, but not hurt him. Not hurt him enough for to sway it for the rebels, not enough to where you actually affect the outcome. Yes. Look. Im not a strategist, but im saying the challenge for the administration by their policy is to hit him and hurt him so that in fact it does have an effect. The reason why they dont want to take charge of the war, in essence, become the leader of the opposition, is we dont want to own syria when assad goes. There is zero appetite in the American People for that, zero appetite really in the administration, and almost everybody in congress, maybe a few outliers and the future course of syria is going to be determined in syria and if the United States tried to take charge of that process, that has the potential of a major disaster for many. We have decided that you cant use gas. The world has decided. Joining us now, jack jacobs, msnbc analyst. We had you on last week. Good to see you again. There is i was talking about some of the nuances of this. There is people that really think that we have that the president s abdicated some executive power here and more or less i guess axelrod said, all right, we are now allowing congress to be the ones what cut the bus, like the dog chasing the bus. What do you do with it . Now you put it in congress domain. What did you make of what happened on saturday . I think it was a really awful sequence of events, not properly orchestrated. The time you get started talking about retaliation for using gas was about two years ago. Not now. Right. There were small strikes with gas. We knew about them and we sort of knew we had the red line comment and were hoping no one remembered it. That was for a guy who has got pretty good political chops, like the president of the United States, that was among the dumbest thing you could possibly say. This is after they already used gas. Then they use it some more. After you have drawn a line in the sand and then for the ens ensuing year, do not do anything to get anybody on your side to react just in case the guy the guy calls your bluff. We didnt talk to Great Britain to any great extent. No sensitivity at all for where nato is coming from. Understanding that David Cameron is not only in a parliamentary democracy, but also is heading a Coalition Government and doesnt really control anything. They didnt work the boards, they didnt do anything but sit around and wait, wait for stuff to happen. And then the very first thing that they do is to send the secretary of state out there to give the best the most impassioned, the most convincing speech of his career and then knock his pegs out from under him. Just all looks bush league, pardon the pun. Just really amateur night. Amazing. And you cant help but just the irony of the whole situation because the president is now, you know, going to have to hope that the republicans and enough of them come on board to maybe put some pressure on the far left of his party, which doesnt want to do this and then you dont have Public Opinion for it at this point. Nothing but irony here. You have the peace president , the secretary of state antiwar demonstrator, who is really annoyed by the war in vietnam and partially if not mostly because it had not yet been approved by congress, Congress Nobody declared any war, so he was opposed to that. And arguing stren with uously a persuasively that i could if i want, but im not going to. Im not going to. This is going to make an extremely difficult for kerry to do his business, to operate with little state craft we have remaining out in the