At the top of the show we ask why are you awake. Producer got one from jorry who writes, its not way too early in the virgin islands. Just walked the beach with a full moon with debbie and joyce. So many things i could say there. I would just say im glad you watch the show, watch morning joe and then maybe go back and enjoy. Im a little jealous. Morning joe starts right now. Shake down 1979 this is very improbable. I understand, mr. President , this was your idea. Why did you want to do this, together, a joint interview . Well, the main thing is i just wanted to have a chance to publicly say thank you because i think hillary will go down as one of the finest secretaries of states weve had. It has been a great collaboration over the last four years. Theres no political tea leaves to be read here . We dont have any tea. Weve got some water here, the best i can tell. You know, this has been just the most extraordinary honor. All right. Good morning. Its monday, january 28th. Welcome to morning joe. Im going to say what . And maybe im just a jerk. Lets start there. No. What . Well just admit it. Willie asked me if i would go over and do a sitdown on 60 minutes before he goes over to the today show. I said, screw you. You want to do it . Thats fine. I just want to thank you. For the honor of serving alongside you. Okay. With us on set, we have the former governor of pennsylvania and nbc news political analyst, ed rendell. The president of the council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass. And in washington, nbc chief Foreign Affairs correspondent and host of Andrea Mitchell reports, Andrea Mitchell. Well, la ti da. Lets hear more of this interview. What do you think, ed rendell . We want to know what this is about. Barack obama, he wouldnt i dont know that hed go on 60 minutes with anybody. Right. In a rare joint interview on cbss 60 minutes, president obama sat alongside his departing secretary of state Hillary Clinton, a onetime political rival who he now describes as one of his closest advisers. Secretary clinton, of course, is stepping down from her post, fueling youd think youre on steroids and not me, seriously. Just stop. Are you juicing . She is. I had a huge allergic reaction to something. We dont want to hear about your rashes, so roll the clip. Go. Whats the i have to ask you, whats the date of expiration on this endorsement . Oh, steve, you know i know i have to ask that question. I mean, come on. I mean, youre sitting here together. Everybody in town is talking about it already. And its taking place. You know, steve, ive got to tell you. You guys in the press are incorrigible. I was literally inaugurated four days ago. Right. And youre talking about elections four years from now. Yeah. And i, as you know, steve, i am still secretary of state, so im out of politics, and im forbidden from even hearing these questions. Boy. You know, they have if we ever decide to leave this hallowed ground, i think they have the chemistry together to maybe host morning joe. All right. Much the same chemistry. Much the same chemistry. Look at that. Just crackling. Come on, mika, thats force. That was forced, and thats what i was sort of uncomfortable with. Its sort of obvious. But i guess you know, i like them both very much. But is he doing this with everyone else . Bing crosby and bob hope, they are not. I mean, come on. Well, they didnt other people leaving the administration . This is more this is whats going on here, willie . They didnt break any new Foreign Policy ground, that was clear, in terms of the questioning. So then youre left to wonder what was going on there . What was the idea . Although it was remarkable to see the two of them sitting together if you thought about where we were five years ago and them saying shame on you and youre likeable enough. Youre a racist. Andrea mitchell, am i being too cynical this morning . Because these are two people i respect a great deal. A great deal. Well, it was sort of as youre pointing out, it was really unusual to see them together. And to see the relationship that they have developed, i think that they have developed a close relationship. I was really intrigued by when he when steve kroft asked about what about the staffs, and they acknowledged it took longer for their staffs to get over the hurt and anger after the campaign, and i would say still hasnt happened, exactly. Because she has been the most celebrated secretary of state and certainly the most highprofile member of the cabinet. And gets along very well with the president. But arguably, she never really broke through the barrier of that National Security staff and the white house staff, the political advisers. And then when he asked about the spouses, the acknowledgment that it took their spouses a lot longer to heal as well. Ed, what was that about . Its hard to figure. And bidens going out killing it. Week in, week out, joe biden is going out, making the deals that have got to be done. Hes the mvp of the past six months. This is really sticking it to a guy that has been saying since 2009 he wants to run for president. Its hard to figure, if this was at the end of the administration, maybe it makes sense. But the president s going to need joe biden and need him all out for the next four years, no question. So whats going on . By the way, you love hillary. You love joe. We all do. We all do. This doesnt make any sense. I think down the road first of all, i do think that theres something about just saying, look, this was a great collaboration. We want to put an exclamation point on a great Collaboration Team of rivals. Look, hillarys more popular than the president right now. The president might have had as much to gain on that as hillary did, number one. Number two, i think that the president , down the road, could be the peacemaker, the person who comes in and says to joe, joe, you cant stand in the way of history. Look, i love joe biden. I think hes earned a shot at it. But if hillary wants to run, how do you stand in the way of history . Yeah. Okay. Well, on Foreign Policy, im just wondering if there was any major news broken . I didnt think so. Making sure i didnt miss anything. Would have covered up the awkward fact that theyre setting her up for, you know, a president ial rain. If they broke some news. Normally i go to willie geist. Steve kroft asked about benghazi, but im not sure we got any new information. The president defended himself from critics who say the u. S. Has not been aggressive enough in using American Power abroad. Well, one more gadhafi probably does not agree with that assessment, or at least if he was around he wouldnt agree with that assessment. When it comes to egypt, had it not been for the leadership we showed, you might have seen a different outcome there. But also understanding that we do nobody a service when we leap before we look. Syria is a classic example of where our involvement, we want to make sure that not only does it enhance u. S. Security but also that it is doing right by the people of syria and neighbors like israel that are going to be profoundly affected by it. And so its true sometimes that we dont just shoot from the hip. So Richard Haass, is this payback for, lets say, bill clinton doing such a great job for the Obama Campaign . Were speculating. People are still going back and saying the most important speech of that campaign was the one given by bill clinton, without question. That was the turning point for the i mean, i say turning point, those guys were pounding republicans who they were targeting from the very beginning, but that was really when america just, i think, turned. Bill clinton captured the moment and defended the presidency. Well, its clear that bill clintons support for the president helped his reelection both at the convention and beyond the convention. Youre asking me to speculate on something i simply dont know anything about. Well, thats what we do here. Sorry. How long you been coming here . Secretary of state leaving office, the president does a joint interview . Ive never seen it before. The secretary of speech is speaking thursday, giving her final speech at the council on Foreign Relations, a chance for her to basically make the case for her Foreign Policy legacy and try to talk about the Foreign Policy of the obama presidency. Yeah. You know, ed and andrea. I want to get to andrea in one second. You look at the pictures of barack obama, first africanamerican president , still, you know, if you had said ten years ago, it would still be shocking. You have Hillary Clinton sitting next to him. Oddson favorite to be the first female president. You look at those two figures, you look at their Approval Ratings, barack obama, building the 70s, hillarys Approval Rating up in the 60s. And then you look at where i was this weekend, the National Review had a great weekend where they were talking about the future of conservatism. I say it was because it was so constructive. But ill tell what you, if the economy keeps Getting Better over the next three years, youve got Hillary Linton rclin running three years from now, we republicans have such a major headwind in our face for the next three years. Its going to be tough. Yeah, theres no question. But theres so many variables. Go ahead. No, so many variables that could happen in the next 3 1 2 years. Yeah. Ed sees you making a motion, he stops. I was trying to get Richard Haass in on this. She wants some more roids. Andrea, im sorry, we cut you off. No, there are other points about the politics of it. Joe biden is going to be at the white house, in closed meetings with the president today and has had a very highprofile role. Clearly, this is the interview that he would have wanted to see. And when you talk to a lot of leading democrats who were in town this weekend, they were saying that joe biden has everything going for him except that Hillary Clinton is a woman and is a celebrity and has the best popularity. And she has the virtue, after eight years then of barack obama and the Obama Administration, of being seen as somewhat of an outsider. And so its a better way to go up against a republican, you know, after eight years of the Obama Administration is to have the first woman. Thats the logical event that she basically would clear the field, even among the great friends and admirers of joe biden who i think has been the most effective Vice President weve seen. The other small Foreign Policy point, not so small, the president was saying, ask Moammar Gadhafi and we wouldnt have what we had against mubarak. Look at the headlines overnight. Look at the streets of egypt, all over egypt today, egypt is hardly a Success Story that they should be pointing to. Thats exactly right. In baseball, were in the first or second inning of the middle east. This literally could be decades of turbulence. Weve already seen the relationship between libya and mali and egypt, theres yet to be anything remotely like the consolidation of a Democratic Political order. So i think we have civil war in syria, we have unrest in jordan and bahrain. Who knows if saudi arabia will be able to last the moment. What we used to call a Peace Process is totally stopped. So i think the administration has to be wary and just careful about pointing to the middle east. Yes, consequential things are happening there. History is in the making. We just dont know if at the end of the day things are going to be better or worse. So far i would make the argument that things are objectively worse. Thats not to blame the administration. Its simply to say large forces are under way, and its hard to argue necessarily that we all come out better for it. Richard, president obama said last night in that 60 minutes interview that Hillary Clinton will go down as one of the great secretaries of state in american history. Obviously he has an interest in saying that. But whats your assessment of her fouryear run . Again, shell be speaking thursday to make the case for it. Its hard to hard to know how to judge a secretary of state. One of the most important things a secretary does is provide private counsel to the president. One of the principal voices around the president. Its hard to know therefore whats the difference between the bvm Foreign Policy and what Hillary Clinton was advocating for . Very tough to make that judgment. I would say, though, youll have to judge it on the basis of the middle east. The end of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, what you think about that. And the big thing also, the greater u. S. Emphasis on asia. The socalled pivot to asia. My guess is when historians look at the obama years, what theyre going to talk about is the slight dialing down in the middle east and the dialing up in the asiapacific. My guess is thats going to be seen as the most significant part of what the administration did. Since there wasnt any kind of real Foreign Policy news out of the interview with the president and secretary of state last night, im going to ask you about some leaders from the past who spoke over the weekend at the my friend adrienne spent a picture of my dad with George Schulz and then kissinger made a speech as well that you were at. Did anything interesting come out of that . Each year the Alfalfa Society which basically exists for the purpose of having this dinner once a year, nominates someone to be the candidate for president. And this year it was Henry Kissinger who gave, i thought, a very funny, selfdeprecating speech. Theres nothing that remotely looks like policy in going out in the room. And a lot of heavy drinking. Oh, is that what was going on . Okay. The president was not there. Valerie jarrett was there. Looking at these pictures of your parents, there obviously was a lot of drinking going on. Oh, dear. One of the things id like to say about Hillary Clinton, though, i think traditional secretary of state, i think richards right, we have to see what happens down the road. She carved out two new grounds for secretary of state. Number one, the work she did on behalf of u. S. Corporations which had previously been done by commerce secretary, but she took that to heart and has credited to a lot of corporations for turning their economic fate around abroad. And secondly, what she did in talking to groups going into a country and holding town meetings, the good will that she produced for the United States, i think its hard to calculate and hard to qualify. I think in those two regards, she was pretty extraordinary. And the womens agenda, youre going to have the first ambassador for women going over to georgetown and creating an institute there of Foreign Policy regarding women. When we talk about pulling out of afghanistan, for instance, a lot of people are really concerned that it will end up being as it was when the taliban were in charge. And so the advancement of womens rights and human rights, im going to be interviewing secretary clinton tomorrow at the state department. So maybe we can pursue some of those questions. That will be amazing. Ill tell you, though, were going to have to, though, wait until 16 to judge how she did because everybody was talking about benghazi. Thats just a small, small part of the story. You look whats happening in egypt right now, the chaos in ee kwi egypt, the chaos in syria, possibly coming to jordan. You dont judge the secretary of state today. You judge her in 2016. Things may be a lot better there the books still open. The book is open. And right now it certainly looks like a mixed bag. Well, another page is turning. After three years, sarah palin and fox news are parting ways. The former Vice President ial candidate last appeared on the network on december 19th. And now will no longer be a paid contributor. The National Journal takes a look at her tenure as a fox news analyst in a piece entitled sarah palin and the end of an era which reads, in part, once the face of an energetic and politically potent tea party movement, palin is leaving fox at a time when polls show the tea party at an alltime low in both membership and favorability, her departure also coincides with calls by some leading republicans for their party to stop saying things that erode the gop brand and turn off voters in droves. This is the woman who, last fall, accused obama of shuck and jive in his statements on the killings of u. S. Diplomatic personnel in benghazi, a racist term dating from slavery days. The problem for republicans is that democrats nominated and elected a black president twice now while they are still trying to fight perceptions they are hostile to minorities and the policies they support. That makes comments like palins particularly harmful. The shuckandjive incident was one of many signs that palin has not adapted to a changing political environment. First of all, on that comment, it is deeply offensive. Democrats did the same thing in 2008. I believe andrew cuomo may have said the same thing in 2008, and he was got a pass. Yeah. He was not hammered as much. He got hammered for that . I read that someone got a pass for it. Some have gotten a pass. Anyway, i think cuomo got hammered pretty hard. But this is i saw, Richard Haass, mr. Im not going to speculate on anything thats not in front of my nose, you know, this is important. This is an important story because the guy who has been the de fact