Corner. I think our country is in desperate need of leadership. Reporter the 45 former Vice President ial nominee is stepping up, saying hes willing to replace House Speaker john boehner. But not so fast. Ryan says if and only if, the three Largest Coalitions in the gop house back his candidacy and agree to the following conditions by friday. Ryan demanding that, first, the Republican Party goes from, quote, an Opposition Party to being a proposition party. We think the nation is on the wrong path. We have a beauty ought duty to t one. Our next speaker has to be a visionary. Reporter reporter next, requesting an update to house rules, making it harder to overthrow a sitting speaker. You have the Freedom Caucus. Where you have the grass roots theyre concerned about paul ryans past. I think paul would be a great speaker. I think he has the skills to do the job. Reporter time is running out as boehner makes it clear he wants out soon. I expect to be out of there by the ended of this month. Reporter well aware of the 100hour workweek he frequently clocks in as speaker, ryans last condition concerns his wife and three children. I cannot and i will not give up my family time. Reporter a family he does not want to let down. My greatest worry is the consequence of not stepping up. Of someday having my own kids ask me when the stakes were so high, why didnt you do all you could do . Reporter it appears that ryan has deep support in the moderate tuesday group and another conservative caucus, the republican study committee. The Freedom Caucus backs another candidate whos been running for speaker, Daniel Webster of florida who told me he has no intention of dropping out of the race. And looming over all of this are the big fiscal issues Congress Must address this fall. Including to avoid a default of the u. S. Debt by early november. Chris and alisyn. Manu, thanks so much for all of that background. Here to discuss it with us, time political Reporter Zeke Miller and editor of daily beast, jackie kucinich. John boehners response to why would anybody want this job is, somebody has to do it, which is not a ringing endorsement. Whats in it for paul ryan . Why would he take it . He wants to do this to save the party from itself, essentially. Hes never run for a leadership post. Hes chairman of ways and means, which is the job he always wanted. This would really be a favor, essentially to the Republican Party. Which is why hes saying you have to come to me. And hes not necessarily going to meet the Freedom Caucus halfway. Its kind of his way or the highway. An they can choose that or they can choose utter disarray because if not paul ryan, there are, you know, a host of other candidates, maybe, i mean, i cant even keep track anymore how many other people are running if paul ryan does not decide to do this. You know this is politics. Politics is about optics to get paul ryan in that position would be a coup for them. Its an ugly business down there, lets not forget but being the speaker of the house is a big job, zeke. What would it mean if ryan got in there in terms of how pivotal he would be with whatever happens with whomever win for president . Democrats see him as somebody they can Work Together with, the president back in 2011 was pointing out paul ryan as his negotiating partner as the potential negotiating partner on some sort of grand bargain fiscal deal that never really materialized because he started negotiating with john boehner and majority leader eric cantor. We heard from congressman ryan last night, maybe soon to be speaker ryan if everything works out within his conference, that he wants to turn the gop into the proposition party. He wants to start offering affirmative legislation instead of just trying to repeal obamacare, offer that replacement that republicans not opposition, proposition. Who has numbers like this. Lets look at it. Lets pull up paul ryans favorability, just out four minutes ago. 62 among republicans. Republicans only. Favorable 14 , unfavorable but what are the chances that these warring facts, these three different facts of republicans as manu raju laid out will come together to support ryan . Thats the open question. The real question, honestly are the 40 members of the Freedom Caucus who have gotten themselves a little they have power right now. They would be relinquishing that to paul ryan. They want to weaken the speakership. They want the power to be more evenly distributed around the party itself so they have more power. It really will be convincing them that this is a good thing in order to make this work for paul ryan. Zeke, how much do they have to do that . If he were to come in with them opposed, theyve been benefitting from a vacuum in terms of getting what jackie rightly calls their fiefdom. There are 37 republicans favorability. They need to come together. Its easier to ostracize one group than it has failed to unify because of that group. If the republicans pass up this opportunity to put paul ryan in that place, theyre looking at for the next two, three months, maybe a year, a cycle of speakers, potentially, certainly more chaos and drama on capitol hill. Youll start seeing the candidates youre emboldening the outsiders who have been dominating the race, whether it be donald trump or ben carson. Paul ryan is a modern family man, hes also insisting one of his, you know, conditions is that he needs a better Work Life Balance than what john boehner had. John boehner, opened a vein for this job, basically. Isnt that interesting to hear sort of the prominent man demanding that . It really is. But this has been a paul ryan thing for as long as ive covered paul ryan. Hes been very into his kids, very into being home. He goes home every single weekend. Sleeps in his office. I know that feeling. Right. When he was Vice President , you saw the family traveling with him a lot when he was running for Vice President. Excuse me. This is very him. You can see, thats going to be nonnegotiable for him. I think its a window into who he is also, right . Zeke, to echo jackies point, these guys are usually nakedly ambitious. Im sure paul ryan has his own. For him to come out and say, listen, theres balance here. Just that message alone will speak well to the observers as far as insanity being part of the political realities. Id rather be spending more time at home with my family. You all want me to do this, if you want me to do this, youll have to change for me to take this job. Its the typical washington power play that only really comes from being their last and only hope. I think its the reason he has 62 favorable. Having grown up in politics with a big shot as a dad, the family loses. The family feels it. Of course. For him to recognize that, i think its a reason hes favorable. You injected sanity into that conversation for some reason. Lets talk about donald trump. We interviewed thats going to cost. We interviewed him yesterday on new day. And he went further than he had before in saying that george w. Bush basically knew that 9 11 was going to happen or should have known. Should have known. Because, he said, just so that i can be clear, he said they knew. They knew there was an attack coming. The cia director knew in advance george tenet. There would be an attack and he said so to the president and everybody else that would listen. Jeb bush obviously has been feuding with donald trump about this. So let me read to you what jeb bush just put out a new oped for the national journal. He said, lets be clear, donald trump simply doesnt know what hes talking about and his bluster overcompensates for a shocking lack of knowledge on the complex National Security challenges that will confront the next president of the united states. Jackie, what do you think of this feud . You know, when jeb bush is responding to donald trump, hes kind of losing. Donald trump has gotten very good at getting right under jeb bushs skin. And when you see him interviewed, when he talks about donald trump, he looks agitated, annoyed with the fact hes actually having to address this. It seems like, this is up to his advisers, it seems like hed be better served rising above it than continuing to get down to Donald Trumps level. The problem is, hes struck a nerve, not so much just with the bushes but the gop in general. Look, even peter bergen wrote in a cnn oped, hes right for the most part in terms of was there a lot of indication there was a threat . Yes. Was there specific information that they were going to take planes and do what they did . No. So where do you come out on whether trump is making this up . Well, youre in a rough position of hes right in august before 9 11. There was the famous National Security briefing that george w. Bush got where he was warned with of a threat. He didnt know what or how or necessarily when. And in hindsight its easy to read that the right way. What trump is doing, is tapping into this open wound still within the gop 14 years later over do they have to defend a president who is still somewhat popular or not. For trump supporters, the outsiders, folks angry at the system are just as angry with george w. Bush as they are with barack obama in a lot of ways. For him to sort of isolate on that thing, forcing jeb bush to defend his brother is boosting his own stature. Zeke, jackie, stick around. We want to talk to you in a few minutes about joe biden. Thanks so much. Did you mention Vice President joe biden, alisyn . I did. Hes still poised on whether to make a decision to run in 2016. Hes drawing sharp contrast with democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton ahead of a potential announcement. Jim acosta has more for us now. Jim. Reporter Vice President joe biden is sharpening up his not so veiled criticism of Hillary Clinton sounding more like a candidate every day. Last night biden was at a tribute for former Vice PresidentWalter Mondale. For the third time in two days he returned to what appeared to be a jab at Hillary Clinton that she considers republicans among her biggest enemies. Biden said, talk like that is naive and wont fix washington. Heres what he had to say. The other team is not the enemy. If you treat it as the enemy, there is no way we can ever, ever, ever resolve the problems we have to. Biden also tried to clear up his role in the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden, saying yesterday that he supported the president s decision to go after the al qaeda leader, even though he had said that he had advised against that operation in the past. The Vice President also appears to be beefing up his potential ground operation by lining up the support of the International Firefighters union, the grupps president , harold shapeburger has spoken to biden in the last few days and that the Vice President is thoughtfully weighing a bid for the white house. Well put this up on screen. He added his group is mobilizing to support biden saying our union is preparing as if the Vice President is going to announce his candidacy. But shapeburger tried to tamp down expectations that a biden announcement is due any moment. I think the big story is, hes offering up a rationale for his candidacy, something that critics say was lacking and that would be that he would be the third term for president obama. Another contrast with Hillary Clinton who has been criticizing some of the president s policies lately. Its a nolose for the union, right, jim . The democrat whoever it is will need them any way so they can say whatever they want. Thats true. Thank you very much, jim acosta. Tomorrow is a very big day, not just for Vice President joe biden but for the race for 2016 and all the players. Because here is the day that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton squares off with the House Benghazi Committee. Now, this morning, cnn is learning more about her game plan and how her supporters are already planning an attack against this beleaguered republicanled panel. Lets bring in cnn senior Political CorrespondentBrianna Keilar live in washington with the latest. Everything can change in terms of the dynamic of this race based on what happens tomorrow. What are you hearing, my friend . Her campaign is very aware of that, chris. What were seeing is a multifront democratic attack on tis republicanled House Benghazi Committee taking shape. The latest volley in this is coming out this morning. This is it. It is a book by correct the record which is the main super pac defending Hillary Clinton. It really takes aim at the committee on everything from the millions of dollars, that the efforts have cost and digs up dirt on the individual members. Now, weve also learned that theres going to be a war room, correct the record will be staffing a room of about 30 employees who will be doing rapid response. Theyre going to be firing back on things that they hear during Hillary Clintons testimony which we do expect as it did back in 2013 is going to last several hours. The Clinton Campaign has armed its surrogates with talking points and really stressing the democrats say that this is just a partisan sherr raid and also to say that Hillary Clinton is testifying to, quote, honor the memory of the four brave americans that died at benghazi. We saw the campaign put out a fiveminute video earlier this week that stressed her accomplishments as secretary of state. Meanwhile, clinton has been preparing for days. As you said, this is something they view as very important and it could stymie some of that momentum shes enjoyed in the last couple of weeks, alisyn. We look forward to hearing more about whats in the 1 40epage book that you got your hands on this morning. Thanks so much for all of that background. Breaking overnight, syrian president Bashar Al Assad makes a surprise visit to moscow to meet with russian president Vladimir Putin. This is assads first trip abroad since his countrys civil war began more than four years ago. Jill doherty is live in moscow with more. What happened at this meeting . Reporter it was a surprise. President putin himself said it was at his invitation for assad to come here. Also, assad by the way, has left. It was a very quick but very important and highprofile trip, as you can imagine. What did they talk about . Of course they talked about the military operation. They talked about the situation on the ground. And then one thing that wasnt talked about or at least woe dont know that it was, that is whats the future for assad . There was a lot of attention paid to the political solution that might ultimately be reached. But the press secretary for president putin didnt say whether they actually had discussed that or not. So thats an outstanding question. I think another thing, why was president putin so interested in this . Obviously, i think, the body language was very important. In the only the substance of the meetings but the fact that it happened. Assad here in moscow for the first time, looking not like a beleaguered person, you know, in a basement hiding out. He was in a suit. He was in the kremlin. And he did not look particularly stressed. For president putin, it worked very well, too. He now looks like a Global Player and thats exactly what you got from these pictures. All right. Michaela. Jill, thank you so much for that. Another set of high stakes meetings set for the future. Secretary of state john kerry is heading to europe and the middle east today. Hell be meeting separately with israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu and palestinian president abbas trying to stop the escalating violence between the two sides. 10 israelis, 46 palestinians have been killed in clashes this month. Kerry is also hoping to reignite the Peace Process in syria. More breaking news of the troubling variety. A new York City Police officer is dead after being shot in the head while chasing a robbery suspect. Hes actually one of two officers shot in the line of duty overnight. We have cnns alexandra field joining us now with the latest. This happened right here in manhattan. Thats right, chris. The new York City Police department mourning one of their own. This was the scene overnight in east harlem where officer randolph holder was responding to reports of an armed robbery, a 33yearold officer approached a group of men and a chase quickly followed. Sections later, bullets rang out, holder was shot in the head. He was rushed to harlem hospital but doctors could not save him. Another gunshot victim was found close by. Hes expected to be charged later today. Holder was a native of guyana and a fiveyear veteran of the force. Police commissioner bill bratton spoke about the loss last night. Four Police Officers murdered in 11 months. Thats about as bad as it gets. Six in the line of duty, four murdered in the line of duty. And meantime in kentucky, a standoff unfolding at this hour with a man believed to have shot another Police Offic