Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell live on the trail in nashua, New Hampshire, for president clintons First OfficialPublic Campaign event for his wife hillary. Speaking moments ago, in a state that has been very good to the clintons. But vermont neighbor Bernie Sanders is proving to be a tougher than expected competitor this time around. Donald trump has raised issues that neither bill or Hillary Clinton wants to confront. Nbcs chuck todd took a look at president clintons successes and failures as a campaign surrogate last time around. Chuck joins me now. Chuck, lets talk about bill clinton as a surrogate. Is he a political asset or liability . Look, hes clearly an asset, okay . Lets not pretend. This is not i dont think even when people thought he was a liability, i think in 2000, you can ask al gore and i think people realize he would have been more of an asset in certain places. I thought today, his best moments are what he can say about Hillary Clinton that she doesnt say about herself and others dont do for her. He adds that personal touch, talks about her in such a human way, it sort of breaks that veneer. Thats where hes really strong and can be very good and he was so good for president obama back in 2012. Now, the question is, does his presence bring up just sort of allude too much to the past, not the future. Thats always a challenge here. Its always been a challenge for Hillary Clinton the president ial candidate, whether it was in 08 where obama turned the page and made anything clinton a liability because it was about the past. Look, thats part of the challenge here. But i think for right now, where Hillary Clinton has some likability problems, that shes got to fix, i think bill clintons definitely an asset particularly in a place like New Hampshire. Of course, donald trump has been going after both hillary and bill clinton. I caught up with bill clinton along the rope line. This is a very controlled event, i have to tell you. Hes shaking hands now but just a few moments ago i had a brief moment climbing over some chairs in this Community College gym trying to get to him. Heres the way it went. Hello, mr. President. How does it feel to be back in New Hampshire which loves you . Wonderful. I lo love this place. How do you feel about the kind of Campaign Donald trump is running, sir . The republicans will have to decide who they are going to be nominating. How i feel is only relevant when it comes to the economy. We are trying to win a primary. We have to do that first. Reporter i was wondering reporter can hillary win this one . Sure. Win here . Sure. But its going to be hard. Reporter whats your advise to her . I believe she has been here a lot, worked hard. Thats all you can do. These people are really fair. No candidate who borders New Hampshire has ever lost a primary here. But i think she can. They have been good to us and we worked hard. So chuck, you have been through this so many times. You know what its like, trying to get something that you can use. Saw a little bit of bill clinton there. Hes he knows going up against a neighboring senator from vermont is going to be hard and New Hampshire is the test for both bill and Hillary Clinton. Its where they turned their campaigns around, spinning a second place finish by bill clinton in 92 and winning for Hillary Clinton in 08. Thats right. This is a big test for her. Let me deconstruct this moment watching you there. First of all, nobody does rope line like you do rope line. Bill clintons ear was so attuned to you. I thought you saw for a flash when you asked him the trump question, he had an answer that he knows, then he was reminded whatever it takes, dont create a story with trump today, mr. President. Im sure thats the advice he got. He listened to that advice. By the way, did you notice you had the aide next to you who then quickly said thank you, thank you. That was the minute they heard trump. Look, there was a strategic decision made by the Clinton Campaign today. Whatever it takes, mr. President , do not try to engage donald trump. Hell engage you. Dont engage back, do your best not to create that story. So thats number one. On the point on New Hampshire, by the way, he is speaking of democratic primaries. We know that john mccain i think beat mitt romney there in 08, so on the republican side, that hasnt always been the case but i was going through my head, i believe hes right. I want to go back and doublecheck 84 and 76. But essentially, hes right and look, all the local polls have shown he actually, sanders is ahead right now. So its not as if hes throwing something out there that seems crazy. Thats what the polls are saying right now. But heres what this means, andrea. I can tell you what the Clinton Campaign is thinking. If they can sweep iowa and New Hampshire, they can save millions of primary dollars and start focusing on the general election. They lose one or both of these two early states, thats three more months that they are going to have to beat back Bernie Sanders. Thats 30 million, 40 million, 50 million down the primary drain that prevents you from finding out if georgias a swing state, arizonas a swing state, doing what you need to do to win florida, which is an Impossible Task sometimes. So thats what winning iowa and New Hampshire means for Hillary Clinton. Indeed. Hillary clinton talking about sort of the political thoroughbreds that we see here, this was Hillary Clinton last night against a heckler who happened to be a republican state lawmaker who brought up bill clintons past, the woman issue, as trump had prompted hecklers to do and this is the way she handled that last night here. This man right there here we go. Right there. You are very rude and im not going to ever call on you. Go ahead, sir. So Hillary Clinton really knows how to handle this stuff when it comes to her, in a frndfrn friendly crowd from a heckler. How she will handle it in future debates is another question. Finally, Bernie Sanders fundraising, only 4 million behind Hillary Clinton in primary dollars. She raised more money because she also raised general election money but thats a really good showing for the vermont senator. It sure is. This means hes got the resources to build the formidable organization you need in iowa. Look, i believe this primary campaign is about iowa on the democratic side, not about New Hampshire. Because i think if clinton can hang on and win in iowa, she is ahead, i think New Hampshire takes care of itself. It takes some of the energy out of sanders, the idea that oh, maybe he cant win and democrats may quote unquote, come home to hillary. If sanders wants to make himself more of a threat to her, it has to, for him, has to start in iowa. Then it makes the New Hampshire victory mean something. Otherwise, its only about the home state business. But immediately its like with barack obama, frankly, winning that first time gave credence to the idea he could win and that started to puncture the balloon. This is for her, to me iowa is the game here both for sanders and for her. Chuck todd, no better way to start it off than chuck todd, host of meet the press. Thank you so much. Great job on the rope line, andrea. Well, thats all because of the camera crews and the producers here who make it all happen. Thank you, chuck. Now a big start to the new year in the middle east. It isnt a good one. Saudi arabia and iran, two power players on opposite sides of the sunni shia divide rivals in the region have severed diplomatic ties and continuing to exchange heated rhetoric. All this, the result of saudi arabias execution of a prominent shiite cleric despite protests from the u. S. In advance, escalating tensions between sunnis and shiites throughout the muslim world. This is a very serious deal. Nbc Foreign CorrespondentAyman Mohyeldin joins me from new york. Right now when you look at the map of the middle east, we see not only conflagrations, potential conflagrations and real ones in yemen already, potential in bahrain and elsewhere, but also real threat to any hope of the saudis and iran working together with john kerry on the syrian peace talks only a few weeks from now. Reporter absolutely. If you were to take a look at the map of the middle east and look at key flash points and the countries that are really engulfed in turmoil, syria, yemen and iraq, in all three of those countries, you have on one side saudi arabia and its allies, on the other iran and its allies. You would not be able to solve any of those ongoing conflicts, any of those ongoing problems, without cooperation from these two heavyweights. Thats certainly something the United States has learned over five years of a stalemate inside syria. So part of the u. S. push over the past several months has been to try to get in addition to russia, in addition to representatives from the opposition inside syria, to get iran and saudi arabia to sit around the table to say okay, where are the areas that we can all agree on and right now, theres not going to be a lot of areas to agree on, because these two countries are not even going to be talking to each other after severing ties just in the past 24 hours or so. But its not just inside syria. As i was saying, its also going to spill over into countries like yemen, where saudi arabia is engaged in a war with the backing of the United States against Houthi Rebels which are once again backed by iran. Andrea . Ayman mohyeldin. Richard hass joins me from the council on foreign relations. Where is the u. S. Influence here . John kerry is about to launch these peace talks on syria. We have just sold all this military equipment to saudi arabia. We pleaded with them not to execute this cleric and they completely ignored the pleas from the white house and state department. Well, as you are suggesting, we dont have an awful lot of influence. I think the saudis made a strategic decision several years ago that they are going to chart their own course. They were upset over how the United States reacted in egypt to mubaraks weakness. They are obviously more than upset over what the United States said it would do, and then didnt do in syria and the saudis essentially said they have to take matters into their own hand. They ignored us on the execution of sheikh nimr and my hunch is they will largely pay little heed to our preferences. They simply think the stakes that they have are much greater than the stakes that we have. The saudis announced big domestic budget cuts, hampered by low oil prices. How much will this distract from their domestic concerns . Its possibly related to that and its also a preemptive move on their part. They want to show to their own people how tough they are against the shia. I think they overreacted in this case, to say the least, about this cleric. I think its also a way of competing with isis. The saudis want to demonstrate that they are pure and that they still represent the real islam and that isis doesnt. And they also dont mind any opportunity to do something that will alienate the iranians for a host of reasons. But i think a lot of this is to do with saudi domestic policy. The problem is you and ayman were saying, its just not going to stay there. I could actually imagine a racheting up of the proxy war between saudi arabia and iran so not just places like yemen or syria, where its already going fairly full bore. Conceivably bahrain and one day conceivably in saudi arabia itself. Thats my real concern, whether saudi arabia is increasingly, its own future is going to come into question here. Its got a big shiite minority population in the oil areas, in fact, of saudi arabia. What about iran, the fact that iran let protesters get into the Saudi Embassy in tehran on saturday, they torched the place . How volatile is the situation in iran . I found that really instructive in that once again, a crowd got out of hand, it wasnt because the iranian authorities were unable to control them. They were unwilling to control them. The president , mr. Rouhani, tweeted and publicly said this was bad for irans image and was wrong and people would be brought to justice but i found this entire thing instructive first about saudi arabia for the reasons we were just saying, where their calculations are, then about iran. Iran still is not a normal country with a normal government that has consolidated political power. Rather, in iran you continue to have multiple centers of power and authority. Its one of the reminders about why its so difficult to do business with iran. We have got now two countries, saudi arabia and iran, who are leading their visions of the middle east and neither one is a normal, strong country and again, its one of the many reasons why this is going to be such a difficult situation for the United States down the road. Richard hass, thanks so much as always. Good to see you. Coming up here, the candidates are all over early voting states today. This is claira. To prove to you that aleve is the better choice for her shes agreed to give it up. Thats today . Well be with her all day to see how it goes. After the deliveries, i was ok. Now the ciabatta is done and the pain is starting again. More pills . Seriously . Seriously. All these stops to take more pills can be a pain. Can i get my aleve back . For my pain, i want my aleve. Get all day minor arthritis pain relief with an easy open cap. Want bladder leak underwear that try always discreet underwear and move, groove, wiggle, giggle, swerve, curve. Lift, shift, ride, glide, hit your stride. Only always discreet underwear has soft dual leak guard barriers to help stop leaks where they happen most and a discreet fit that hugs your curves, you barely feel it. Always discreet underwear so bladder leaks can feel like no big deal. Because hey, pee happens. Get your free pair and valuable coupons at always discreet. Com not only is Hillary Clinton incompetent but she has lied. While she was leading the families of the fallen to believe the attack in benghazi happened because of a youtube video, we now know she was admitting in private emails that it was indeed the result of terrorism. She lied to our faces. Today, president ial candidates are holding 28 separate events with only 28 days remaining until the Iowa Caucuses. Lets turn to our reporters on the campaign trail. Nbcs katy tur in massachusetts ahead of a trump Campaign Event there not that far from where we are today. And Nbcs Kristen Welker is in nashua with me, covering bill and Hillary Clinton along the road. First to you, katy, what about the republicans and the trump effect . With trump now putting his First Campaign ads up, he saved a whole lot of money. This is the first time hes had to spend any money on Television Ads and as he points out, he doesnt really have to. Reporter he doesnt really have to, he says, because hes still getting a ton of national air time. Hes released this ad on his website as of now. The Campaign Says it will start airing in iowa and New Hampshire as of tomorrow, but nbc news cannot confirm that the money has gone to any of the tv stations where these ads would be airing. So its still not clear where exactly the ad buys are going although that could of course come through later in the day. Donald trump is spending as he said 2 million per week on these ads, about a million in iowa, about a million in New Hampshire and the ads about 30 seconds long. It encapsulates his campaign pretty neatly. Everything he has been saying on the campaign trail attacking isis, cutting them off at the head, stopping radical islamic terrorism, stopping illegal immigration, building a wall and he does this not only by inciting fear but doing it in the very trump way, the way that hes been honing all this time by making it very colloquial saying we need to figure out whats going on and thats why we need a muslim ban. This ad is very along the lines of what hes been doing so far, whether or not it will help raise him up in the polls in iowa, we will have to wait and see. So far, he is doing, still doing quite well in New Hampshire. And thank you, katy. Kristen welker, so trump is taking on bill clinton, taking on Hillary Clinton and attacking Hillary Clinton for connection to barack obama. Its sort of a trifecta. Reporter you are absolutely right, andrea. The response from the Clinton Campaign has been very strategic. She is answering some of his criticism on issues like isis. You heard her say yesterday that the republican candidates want to blame her and the former president for just about everything but they are not engaging on the issues of trump slamming former president bill clinton on his sexual transgressions. I thought what was interesting today in listening to former president clinton talk, he sort of gave this very robust defense of secretary cli