Obama sits down for wide-ranging interview with Rolling Stone

>>> douglas brinkley 's wide ranging interview with the president for " rolling stone " magazine touched on plenty of serious, important issues. but i'm willing to bet you probably haven't heard about those serious substantive points. joining me now, doug glast brinkley, historian. doug , let's -- i want to get this out of the way. it is a remarkable thing, the piece is long, it is detailed and yet, one word the president uttered as an aside has gottens the attention. are you surprised or did you know when you wrote the piece that might be the thing that would grab folks is.

>> i was surprised. when it first came out, the associated press and "the washington post " focused on president talking about the supreme court and affordable care yesterday. even yesterday that hit the blog and had its day of infamy and seems to be repeating today.

>> now i want to talk about -- i like the day of infamy. some of the other stuff that's in there. and one of the things i was struck by in the interview is, the level -- i don't want to say it's distaste barack obama has of mitt romney but he's dismissive saying this is a guy who doesn't believe what he says. could you get that from the interview? did the tone and his willingness to say that as bluntly as he said it surprise you?

>> the oval office interview took place for 45 minutes october 11th and he was still smarting from denver and his attitude was one of let's go get them. he was coming back and he did do better in the next two debates, much better. yes, i tried to ask him directly about mitt romney and he -- the thing that struck me is how important in the campaign roe versus wade is becoming. basically telling the base and telling women, if mitt romney comes in, look at getting a new supreme court justice which will give five to overturn roe versus wade and that's tracking more. in the spring i thought gay marriage would be debated a lot more but it's roe versus wade and one of the motivating forces for the obama campaign right now to get women out there to vote, particularly young women .

>> i want to ask you, we talked to kal penn , who's in charge of young folks getting them to vote, registered early and we asked them about the enthusiasm gap and in the piece you mentioned yes, we can transfers to no, you won't, basically taking the message focused on obama to one focused on romney. how do you get people enthused about a message like that? how does the president do that? it's harder to get people enthusiastic about what might happen than the promises he made some feel he didn't deliver on.

>> i agree with you. that's what you see the president doing in overdrive. he's decided to hit as many -- interview with me, for "rolling ston stone", mtv going on today, trying to reach colleges and young people in iowa with constant, and in ohio. i get the feeling those are the three key states. the president can win those which looks like he's ahead in the polls, then he's the next president. one of the things with obama care that struck me in the interview was it is like medicaid or medicare or social security and has his name on it and if he gets a second term it will come into play and become part of american history and if he doesn't get re-elected it will very well fade away or only a few parts of it will stay and it dawned on me during this interview just how much this president has at stake.

>> now, doug , i cannot let you go because the thing i was most struck by in the piece was, you write seemingly pretty definitively you think hillary rodham clinton , current secretary of state, will be the next democratic presidential candidate whenever that might be. do you know something we do not?

>> i don't. i'm having fun with it. the point being for the republicans, if they can't win this with barack obama , you know, with unploinlts at 7.8%, if the unemployment picture gets better and you have hillary clinton who would close a lot of this help with women voters certainly, but everybody seems to respect her so her so much. republicans have to rethink their message. a lot of pressure has been on president obama but what happens if the republicans lose and one of the things i hope msnbc can answer for mean i've looked into it is how can the republican party keep the tea party inside the tent. i thought ron paul 's voice would be heard this fuel and it's been muted. it's worth exploring in the next few days.

>> doug brinkley, thank you.