60 Minutes interview fuels Clinton 2016 speculation

>> that interview, of course, last night adding fuel to the fire of speculation surrounding a potential hillary clinton presidential run in 2016 . the president said he requested the interview to publicly thank the secretary of state for job well done but our first read team writes, it's a reminder that vice president joe biden is not the heir apparent. if clinton decides to run for president four years from now. joining now, part of the team that wrote that, mark murray and nia-malika henderson is back for round two. let's play the reaction of the 2016 talk and tying it in to the inauguration. let's play it.

>> you guys in the press are inkor ini incorrigible. you are talking about elections from years from now.

>> i'm out of politics and forbidden from hearing these questionings.

>> i don't know if i enjoyed the more the president's comment or her laughter. mark, with that said for the people angry that we're talking about 2016 , let's talk about the importance or significance of that interview and why the president and this is key here, he wanted and pursued this opportunity.

>> it was to give thanks to hillary clinton . it is important to note that five years ago to this date, tamron, barack obama and hillary clinton were preparing for super tuesday. it was a contest that hillary clinton won some big states and barack obama emerged with more delegates. five years later, here they are on the same page and democratic party more unified than ever been and at least in decades and one of the reasons why is both people have been so loyal the each other. here's a very good relationship of hillary clinton and barack obama and each benefited from each other over the past four years.

>> i want to read the reviews. lauren ashburn says by obama sitting down with the secretary of state, it was clear he was launching an effort to buff her scuffed image before she resigns in the next couple of weeks. joan walsh said they broke no news and provided little insight on the foreign policy but there's a remarkable comfort and chemistry between them. what did you think while watching the interview s?i

>> that's right. no news was broken but president obama did himself a great favor nominating hillary clinton as secretary of state, insulating himself from any sort of primary challenge. also did her a great favor by insulating her from the politics of the last four years. joe biden , i think, is going to be in the center of a lot of the big political fights over the next year and going to see his approval ratings probably take a beating. of course, playing kyoto say this isn't about 2016 . what a fantastic launch for hillary clinton . should she decide to run. i think one of the things we have seen over the last elections is that the person who has some strong connection with a base who's a candidate almost drafted by the base does better. mitt romney didn't have that. john mccain didn't have that. i hazard to say i don't think biden has that either. any of the democrats i talked to always say clinton , clinton , clinton . it's time for a woman. i think this will be hillary clinton 's big decision to make and my goodness, joe biden certainly can't be happy about that but i think this sort of speculation about biden , at least keeps sort of interest in obama 's presidency.

>> right.

>> makes it more relevant going forward.

>> and let's be real here. i mean, as african-americans celebrated having the first african- american president , nia-malika, i've talked to women who want to see as secretary clinton said, 14 million chips in the glass ceiling , through her presence in running.

>> that's right. and i think she would have that connection. you know, one of the connections that the democratic party faces is who can keep the obama coalition going and i think probably hillary clinton iso be able to do that rather than biden . and i also just think that part of obama 's legacy is whether or not he's going to be able to hand off the white house to another democrat in the way that reagan was able to do and i think he's probably smart thinking at 2016 and thinking who's the best person to hand this white house off to, who can really pull it off.

>> right. mark, we have to point out and negligent not to talk about what's happening in egypt right now and more violence, more deaths. we'll have some live images coming up today. it was another awful day. these are live pictures right now from tahrir square where we have seen more violence and the president tauted the successes of hillary clinton . these are the image that is are piercing through us in this region and in syria, jordan, as well. the list could certainly increase.

>> i think the arab spring and how that turns out no one really knows. we won't have a verdict for 10 or 15 years. better to keep mubarak in place even though you would be kind of giving comfort to a dictator or was it better just to let democracy flourish? i think we'll find out later but looking at the tenure of president clinton and trying to deal with the things they inherited. the iraq war . the afghanistan war . managing several crises and might not have been any big imprints with foreign policy , what they tried to pursue like having everlasting peace in the middle east , you end up seeing a perspective from both hillary clinton and barack obama where they were trying to put out a lot of fires around the world in a very, very messy world. thank you very much. great pleasure having you on for two segments today. programming note,