Face the Nation transcripts July 21, 2013: Boehner and Snyder

(CBS News) Below is a transcript of "Face the Nation" on July 21, 2013, hosted by CBS News' Bob Schieffer. Guests include: Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, Gov. Rick Snyder, R-Mich., Gwen Ifill, Susan Page, David Ignatius, Gerald Seib, Michael Scherer and John Dickerson.

SCHIEFFER: And good morning, again. Well, I went to the Capitol to talk to House Speaker John Boehner on the week that the House had voted for the 39th time to kill or delay the president's health care plan. So with this shaping up at the least productive legislative session in history, I began by asking Speaker Boehner, wasn't it time to get on to something else? "Absolutely not," he told me. Republicans have only begun to fight this plan and won't be satisfied until they kill it.

BOEHNER: The program isn't ready. This is not ready for prime time. This is not good for the country, and we're going to stay at it.

SCHIEFFER: So we can expect more of this.

BOEHNER: Absolutely. You're going to see a lot more of it, and you're going to see bipartisan votes coming out of the House to begin to derail this thing.

SCHIEFFER: Knowing full well that this is going nowhere.

BOEHNER: Well, Bob, I've been around this town for a little while, like you have -- not quite as long -- but around here, never, ever, ever is not usually a good prescription. The senators know, the Democrat senators know that this law's not workable. They know it's not ready. It was Max Baucus, Senate chairman, Democrat chairman of the Finance Committee, who said that this was a train wreck. They know it's a train wreck, so I wouldn't be so quick to suggest that they're never going to take this up. Matter of fact, I would urge Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, put these two bills on the floor of the Senate to delay the employer mandate and to delay the individual mandate, and let's see what happens.

SCHIEFFER: All right, let's talk about the other big issue, and that is immigration. I just want to cut right to the chase here. Will you allow any immigration bill to come to the House floor for a vote if it includes some kind of path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants that are in this country now?

BOEHNER: Bob, we have a broken immigration system. The legal immigration system is broken. We have the problem with 11 million people who are here without documents, 40 percent of whom, by the way, came here as legal immigrants. So we've got a very big problem. And what I've committed is that, one, the House does not like the Senate bill. You know, it's one big massive bill that, in my opinion, doesn't have enough serious triggers to protect our borders.

SCHIEFFER: But would you allow -- getting back to the question I asked--

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHNER: (Inaudible).

SCHIEFFER: Would you allow a bill on the floor that provides a path to citizenship?

BOEHNER: Bob, what we're going to do --

SCHIEFFER: -- 11 million people?

BOEHNER: -- what we're going to do in the House, is we're dealing with this in a commonsense, step-by-step approach. We want to deal with this in chunks, chunks that the members can deal with and grapple with and frankly chunks that the American people can get their arms around --

SCHIEFFER: But can I say this --

BOEHNER: -- 1,300-page bills that no one has read.

SCHIEFFER: Are you not going to answer that question?

BOEHNER: It's not about me. This is about -- this is about allowing the House to work its will.

SCHIEFFER: Would you allow that to happen?

BOEHNER: This is about bringing these bills out here in a commonsense way. And I'm not going to predict what's going to be on the floor and what isn't going to be on the floor. Now that's what you're asking me to do. I can't do that, and I don't want to do that. My job in this process is to facilitate a discussion, and to facilitate a process so the American people can see what we're doing and so the members understand that we're dealing with this in a deliberative way.

SCHIEFFER: Do you, Mr. Speaker, yourself, personally, favor a bill that has a path to citizenship for those 11 million?

BOEHNER: Bob, people have been trying to get me to do this since the day after the election.

SCHIEFFER: Well, you're the leader of the Republicans.

BOEHNER: The day after the election I made clear that I thought it was time for our government to deal with this serious problem of immigration.

SCHIEFFER: You actually said you were for a comprehensive bill. BOEHNER: And I believe that we have to deal with it. We have to deal with it in an honest way. It's not about me. It's not about what I want. What I'm -- what I've committed to, when I became Speaker was to a more open and fair process. And as difficult as this issue is, me taking a hard position for or against some of these issues will make it harder for us to get a bill.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you this, then, can your party survive without pass something kind of immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship? Senator Lindsey Graham, who is about as conservative as you can get --

BOEHNER: And one of my dear friends.

SCHIEFFER: -- without immigration reform your party is in a demographic death spiral.

BOEHNER: This isn't about politics and it's not about our party. This is about doing the right thing for our country. We're a nation of immigrants. Immigration has strengthened our country. We have got a broken system. My job is to work with the House members on both sides of the aisle, facilitate a conversation and facilitate a process where we can deal with this honestly and openly.

SCHIEFFER: But you're not going to say what you're for or what you're against, you're just --

BOEHNER: Why do I want to make -- If I come out and say I'm for this and I'm for that, all I'm doing is making my job harder. My job is to -- as the leader of the House, is to facilitate this conversation, this process, that involves members on both sides of the aisle, involves the American people, and when they can see us moving in a deliberative, step-by-step commonsense way.

SCHIEFFER: That is kind of an interesting take on leadership, though. In other words, you don't see yourself as someone who has an agenda. You're there to just sort of manage whatever your people want to do? Is that -- I'm not sure I understand what you see as your role as the leader.

BOEHNER: The House -- the House should be allowed to work its will. You know, I've watched a number of speakers during my tenure here in Congress. And, you know, I can talk about what happened just before I became Speaker. All the bills were written in the Speaker's office. Those bills turned -- all turned out to be very unpopular, whether it was the stimulus bill, the Dodd-Frank bill, ObamaCare, and shoved through the floor of the House, 430 members, Democrat and Republicans, locked out of the process. This is not the way the House is intended to work.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this, Mr. Speaker. Do you -- have you come to this approach because you can't control your caucus?

BOEHNER: No. Bob, I talked about this the day I was sworn in as Speaker, that I considered my job was to open up the process, let members participate. Yes, I've got certain things that I'd like to see accomplished. But this is not going to be about me. I said it the opening day. And it's never going to be about me. It's what's in the best interest of the country. If we're listening to the American people and we're following their will, our House will work just fine.

SCHIEFFER: Well, is it in the best interest of the country to keep the government in total gridlock? Because that's where we are right now. Nothing has happened.

BOEHNER: We've got a divided country. We've got a divided government. Democrats have the White House. They have the Senate. American people sent Republicans here to the House. We have divided government. Our job is to find the common ground. Yes, the country is divided, but, my goodness, there is common ground.

SCHIEFFER: Well, I don't see anybody finding common ground right now.

BOEHNER: Well, it's a little harder to find today than it was 10 years ago.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about another leader, that is the President of the United States. What do you think his agenda is for the second term?

BOEHNER: I have no idea.

SCHIEFFER: Do you talk to him? When is the last time you all spoke?

BOEHNER: I talked to him last week, I believe it was. We've had some more regular conversations here over the last couple of months.

SCHIEFFER: What was that about?

BOEHNER: Well, I'd like to keep the conversations between president and myself between the president and myself.

SCHIEFFER: But you said back there at the beginning you wanted to find the common ground that's eluded us. Do you feel you have found any common ground with the president?

BOEHNER: I think we all recognize that immigration reform has to be dealt with. And while we have a lot of different opinions about how to get there and what to do, I do think it's an issue that has to be dealt with.

SCHIEFFER: Let's talk with the economy. You often ask, where are the jobs? But it's clear, it seems to me, that cutting spending specifically through this sequester, has resulted in job loss, both in the private sector and in the government.

BOEHNER: Republicans have a plan for job creation. We've been at this now for the last two and a half years. And whether it's making student loans more affordable, stopping unnecessary regulations, trying to get our budget deficit under control -- all of these things would help get our economy moving again. Listen, this new normal of slow economic growth, no increase in jobs that are available, wages are being basically frozen. We're squeezing the middle class. And I would argue the president's policies are getting in the way of the economy growing, whether it's Obamacare, whether it's all these needless regulations that are coming out of the government. It's getting in the way of people wanting to invest in our economy. I used to be a small businessman. I know how this works.

SCHIEFFER: Steve LaTourrette, recently retired House Republican from Ohio, friend of yours, was asked by "New York"magazine recently what he thought you still enjoyed about your job. And he said, "I can't figure out anything he'd still enjoy. I'd be depressed. I'd be ripping my hair out. I'm surprised he's not bald." What do you enjoy about your job, Mr. Speaker?

BOEHNER: Bob, I came here 23 years ago as a small businessman committed to finding a way for - to achieve a smaller, less-costly, and more accountable federal government. I think the American people are seeing now the IRS scandal, and what the Justice Department did to the press, what happened in Benghazi, and what's going on with Obamacare, the American people are looking up at a government that's out of control. It's too big to govern. And so the mission I came here with as a small businessman 23 years ago is still my mission -- to fight for a smaller, less-costly, a more accountable federal government, to empower the private sector to be all that it can be, to create jobs for our kids and grand kids. That's what drives me every day. And I know people from the outside look in and go, "how can he put up with all this nonsense?" But I don't look at it that way. I stay focused on the mission I came here with, and it's still the mission I have.

SCHIEFFER: Any way you cut it, and whoever's fault it is, you have presided over what it perhaps the least-productive and certainly one of the least popular congresses in history. How do you feel about that?

BOEHNER: Well, Bob, we should not be judged on how many new laws we create. We ought to be judged on how many laws that we repeal. We've got more laws than the administration could ever enforce. And so we don't do commemorative bills on the floor. We don't do all that nonsense. We deal with what the American people want us to deal with. Unpopular? Yes. Why? We're in a divided government. We're fighting for what we believe in. Sometimes, you know, the American people don't like this mess.

SCHIEFFER: But it's not the case, Mr. Speaker, of just passing or not passing new laws. You've got the government in gridlock. You're laying off people in the Defense Department. They're working four days a week. You've got the sequester that is the creation of congress. This is not something that...

BOEHNER: Now, Bob, that's wrong. That is wrong.

SCHIEFFER: Hoisted upon Washington by...

BOEHNER: Who?

SCHIEFFER: Somebody from Mars.

BOEHNER: Who insisted on the sequester, the president of the United States.

SCHIEFFER: Well, I'm talking about Washington in general.

BOEHNER: He insisted on it. Understand something, Bob, the government has spent more than it brought in for 55 of the last 60 years. I made it clear two and a half years when I was about to become speaker that we were not going to kick this can down the road again. So the president insisted on the sequester. I said the sequester would be in effect until the president would agree to cut some reforms that will put us on a path to balance the budget over the next 10 years.

SCHIEFFER: What do you want your legacy to be?

BOEHNER: He was fair to all and protected the institution. When you look at my job, there's one person responsible for the institution of the House, and that falls into my lap. It's my number one responsibility. But in addition to that, I actually do believe that opening up the process, allowing committees to do their work, bringing bills through committee in a more fair and open process on the floor, will begin to heal this institution. There's partisan scar tissue all over place, but if -- the more I can open it up and allow members to work together, over time that partisan scar tissue will begin to melt and go away. It's a long-term proposition, but I'm committed to it.

SCHIEFFER: What is the most important thing you think could happen this year if you could just wave a magic wand? What would be your number one priority right now?

BOEHNER: Well, that we would do something to fix our fiscal situation. It's the biggest threat to the future of our country. And we can't cut our way to prosperity, nor can we just grow our way out of the problem. We need to do both. So, we need tax reform where we bring down the rates, we get rid of the garbage in the tax code, make it fairer for more Americans and it will help us with real economic growth. But in addition to that, we've got to fix our entitlement problem. These programs are important to tens of millions of Americans, but they're not going to be there if we don't get serious about fixing these programs so that our kids and grand kids aren't given 60 percent or 70 percent of their check to the federal government to pay for our benefits.

SCHIEFFER: Last question, but do you have any hope that any of those things could be accomplished by the end of this year?

BOEHNER: Hope, hope spring eternal. I'm an optimist. I wouldn't be sitting here if I wasn't.

SCHIEFFER: Mr. Speaker, thank you..

BOEHNER: Thank you.

SCHIEFFER: And we'll be back in a minute to talk with Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder.

SCHIEFFER: It had been expected, but it still came as a shock this week when the city of Detroit filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, a record $19 billion. Once the city of 2 million people, Detroit's population has plummeted to 700,000. It takes an hour for police to respond to calls. Almost half of the city's schools have closed in the last three years. Some consider Detroit an urban disaster area. Joining us this morning in the studio here to talk about the problems, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. Governor, thank you so much for coming. Let me just start with the obvious. What does this mean for the people of Detroit? Are the police and firemen still going to get paid? Will some of them be laid off? What happens now?

SNYDER: Yeah, Bob, this is a very tragic situation, and this was a very difficult situation, but it's the right one. And we looked through every other viable option. We worked in good faith towards many other courses of action. And this has been 60 years in the making as you said, going back to the 2 million people Detroit once had. Ultimately, if you step back and say this is an opportunity to stabilize Detroit and grow Detroit, because you have to get back to the fundamentals of the -- the most important thing is not just the debt question. The debt question needs to be addressed -- $18 billion in liabilities. But even more important is the accountability to the citizens of Detroit. They're not getting the services they deserve and they haven't for a very long time. So, this can has been getting kicked down the road for decades. Enough is enough and now is the time to turn it around.

SCHIEFFER: Yeah, so what about it? Will your police force stay at the same level? Will you have to lay off people?

SNYDER: No, immediately what happens with bankruptcy is we are continuing normal operations, but I'll tell you, normal operations are not good enough. But people will still get paid. People are coming to work. People will get what I would describe as regular service. I wouldn't call it normal service. The good part is we have a number of steps in place to improve things in Detroit, because we need to do that. Again, they deserve a better answer, the wonderful people of Detroit. Because if you look at it, one thing that's already happened is there's a new police chief coming, there's are new police investigation. There are opportunities to look at these issues because in some cases, 58 minutes for a response time is absolutely unacceptable

SCHIEFFER: And what about the 20 - what do you have 20,000 people who are retired on city retirements? Will they -- is their retirement, is their pension in jeopardy? Can they expect it to be cut? What happens to them?

SNYDER: And that's one of the other tragic situation of this that your heart has to go out to anyone -- these retirees who worked hard for the city, they are on a fixed income. There's a challenge there. But I would say is, the bankruptcy process allows us to do it in a more thoughtful, more deliberate better way where they have a voice at the table. During the process that we've been going through about talking to creditors, no one wanted to represent the retirees. So, proactively in the bankruptcy petition we put in, we've asked the judge to put together a group of retirees, someone to represent the retirees so they can have a voice at the table. We can hear from them. The other thing I would mention to you, in particular. We've already said short term through the end of the year there won't any change. Beyond that, the real question also is to the degree the pension plans are funded, that there are assets, they're not part of this process. Those will continue. They will be there to help them. It's the unfunded piece. And there's a terrible history there of mismanagement, of poor investment, of other things that should get aired out publicly and should be part of this discussion.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this: Mayor David Bing said this morning on ABC, I think, that no decision has yet been made on asking for a federal bailout. Do you think there is a federal bailout in Detroit's future?

SNYDER: No, and I don't expect one. I've said before the state cannot bail out the city of Detroit. And part of the context I would say that to you in is it's not about just putting more money in a situation; it's about better services to citizens. Again, it's about accountable government. And so what we're doing at the state level -- and I would ask the federal government the same thing -- is let's use -- let's come up with targeted programs where we can see there's real value to citizens for improvement. I'll give you one tangible illustration we are partnering with the city government, the state, and the federal government on is about taking down blighted structures. We were able to obtain $100 million that, hopefully within the next 30 days, we'll start deploying those dollars toward taking some of those 78,000 abandoned structures down. They have been going on for years.

SCHIEFFER: But, you know, the federal government bailed out General Motors. It bailed out Chrysler. That worked out pretty well. Are you saying that that is just simply not on the table as far as you're concerned?

SNYDER: If the federal government wants to do that, that's their option. That's always their alternative. The way I view it is, I want to partner with all levels of government and stay focused on services to citizens.

SCHIEFFER: But you, as a state official, you would not ask the federal government to do that?

SNYDER: Again, I don't view that as the right answer. The right answer is bankruptcy is there to help deal with the debt question. The more important question is better services to the citizens, police, fire. Think about the poor child, the young girl walking to school in October, going by blighted structures, wondering is it safe. Those are -- that's the situation we have to focus on. And those can be very focused, targeted things that we can measure results and make sure we're doing a better job.

SCHIEFFER: And what about bond holders? What of people that own these municipal bonds, once considered the safest investment one could make? Are their -- are their bonds in danger here?

SNYDER: That's going to be part of this process. And realistically, if you step back, if you were lending to the city of Detroit in the last few years, didn't you understand there are major issues and problems? And look at the yields they're obtaining compared to other bonds. They were getting a premium. So this is a tough situation where you need to walk through it. But basically Detroit hasn't had a positive fund balance since 2004 in its general fund -- 2004. So this isn't a recent occurrence. This has been going on. And that's my point is, enough is enough. One thing I'd really emphasize, there are great things going on in Detroit outside of city government. So I'd view this as removing the last major negative obstacle is, young people are coming; business is coming. Let's get this resolved. Let's grow Detroit.

SCHIEFFER: Well, Governor, you've got a hard job ahead of you and I know all of us wish you the best of luck with this. Thank you so much for taking time to join us. I'll be back in a minute with some personal thoughts about Helen Thomas. Stay with us.

SCHIEFFER: Helen Thomas died this weekend. She covered 10 presidents, beginning with John Kennedy. She was the first reporter I met when I came to Washington and the first woman to cover a president. Until she came, the women in the White House Press Corps -- and there weren't many of them -- covered the president's wife. Helen wasn't very complicated. She started every day at the White House asking the same questions, "Where is the president? What is he doing? Who is he talking to? And why can't I be in the room with them?" -- which is exactly what wire service reporters are supposed to do. She had great respect for the presidency and the institutions of government, no patience with the self-important and the pompous. They all looked alike to her. During Gerald Ford's presidency, those of us who covered the White House were herded into the press room for a briefing from national security adviser Henry Kissinger one day. The press secretary told us Kissinger was so busy he could only speak for 20 minutes and not a second more, just too busy. Kissinger took the podium and said, "Well, being a college professor, my lectures are timed to 40 minutes. I don't know if I could do it in 20 minutes." Without missing a beat, Helen shot back, "Well, just start at the end." Even the old professor got a laugh out of that. Helen was 92. Back in a minute.

SCHIEFFER: Welcome back to "Face the Nation" Page Two, analysis in this half hour. Susan Page from USA Today is with us, Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal, and the new bureau chief for Time magazine, Michael Scherer. He's also the author of this week's cover story on Trayvon Martin. On my left here, Gwen Ifill of the PBS "Newshour" and moderator of "Washington Week," columnist David Ignatius of The Washington Post and our CBS News political director John Dickerson. Susan, I just want to start with John Boehner and what he talked to me about. We are seeing a very different kind of speaker, are we not? This is not Tip O'Neill, who had an agenda. This is not Jim Wright. Is not even Dennis Hastert. This is not Bob Dole when he was the leader of the Senate Republicans. He seems to see his job more as sort of a lawyer that has been hired by the majority to sort of represent them and then carry out their wishes.

SUSAN PAGE, USA TODAY: Well, he kind of described the job as he was the concierge for the Republican House Caucus. And, you know, the thing that that says to me is that the immigration bill, not going to become law this year because to do big, hard things that divide the country, like the civil rights legislation in the 1960s, it required congressional leaders who were willing to take big steps to push their caucus around sometimes, to get things through. It does not sound like that's going to happen on immigration.

SCHIEFFER: I tend to agree with you, because Boehner has made a rule that he will not put anything on the House floor unless a majority of House Republicans agree with it. And I do not believe there's a majority of among House Republicans right now for a bill that includes a path to citizenship for the 11 million people who are here illegally.

PAGE: I think you're exactly right. And the problem with that is Senate Democrats have made it clear they will not pass an immigration bill that does not include a pathway to citizenship. Who blinks? Will it be Senate Democrats, or House Republicans? I'm inclined to think neither one will.

SCHIEFFER: I think nothing. John, does Speaker Boehner really have a choice here?

JOHN DICKERSON, CBS POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, he doesn't. I think that's what he basically says. It's he has got to take this kind of theater usher role, trying to kind of get everybody to the exit in the same way, because he has got no other choice. We're on plan C here on the immigration. The elections didn't change things. There are some Republicans who say we have to court Latino voters because we saw in the election we need them. That didn't change the minds of a lot of members of the House. Success in the Senate didn't change the minds of a lot of members in the House. So John Boehner is trying to deal with these members of his caucus who are very suspicious of the process. He kept saying, I want to be remembered as the person who facilitates a process. Imagine that on a statute: "He facilitated a process." But that's best he can do, which is let them come to yes on their own time, find a way to get these recalcitrant members to get to this immigration on their own. He has an agenda. He wants them to get there but the only way he's going to do it, with so much mistrust, is if he can kind of gently guide them. It's a tough thing to do.

SCHIEFFER: I really think John Boehner in many ways -- I have considerable sympathy for him. I mean, I think he's an old-style legislator. I think he's likes to legislate. I think he's not afraid to compromise. But he -- it's like when I used to be a kid hanging around rodeos. They had what they called Roman-style riders. And they were guys, there would be two horses, and they would put one foot on one horse and one foot on the other, and, you know, they would ride around the arena. Well, the two horses he's trying to ride here, one goes this way and one goes that way.

DICKERSON: And when he says he doesn't want to touch the -- doesn't want to say what his opinion is, it's because some of his members distrust him. And it's very similar to what the president says. The president says, if I back something, that will ruin it because the Republicans will be against it. Both the president and John Boehner have faced with a problem. Washington has changed. They have certain powers but those powers are very limited. Are they going to be remembered by the limits on their powers or will they be remember by the creative way they got around the limitations of their day? Both men face the same thing.

SCHIEFFER: One of the unexpected events of the week was on Friday when President Obama went to the Press Room in the White House and said he decided he wanted to make a few comments on the Trayvon Martin case. Here's just a little bit of what he said.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. There are very few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African- American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator.

SCHIEFFER: Gwen Ifill, that is one of the most personal statements I've ever heard any president make. And I thought it was interesting. I mean, this is kind of a journey that the president has come on here. He ran for president not as a black man trying to represent the rights of black people, he ran as an American who happened to be black. And he went to great trouble to put emphasis on that. This was a different side of President Obama.

GWEN IFILL, PBS ANCHOR, "THE NEWSHOUR": I was just thinking of your rodeo analogy. The president -- I spent a considerable amount of time talking in the wake of that talk in the briefing room, talking to people about the White House, about how this came about. And the president became convinced there were two different conversations going on, two horses going in opposite directions. One was about the legal system and what was legal about what happened to Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman's culpability. The other was this cultural -- really cultural conversation. And that to a person, every black man I know can tell the story the president told, which is surprising to almost every white person I know that this is a routine way of living. And what the president -- this started with the verdict. Actually, this started with the night that Trayvon Martin was killed, when I was told the president was insulted that his parents weren't notified right away, and he felt this would have never happened to a white teenager to lie in a morgue for two days, or however long it was, before his parents were told where he was. And then it continued through the verdict. Not that he questioned the verdict but that the reaction to the verdict and what he saw yesterday in all these marches around the country, these hundred marches, was anguish. And it was an anguish that a lot of white Americans didn't understand. Now you remember the 2008 speech on race. And the president then was in a very political situation. He had to explain to white voters why he was not threatening, why he was not Jeremiah Wright, why he had a white mother, and smooth things over. Yesterday, a Friday, he was speaking to African-Americans, saying, I get what you get. And he was speaking to white Americans trying to explain. It was a new role for him and a role that he decided to take. He was the one who rewrote the draft of the first statement they put out. He wanted to talk about this when he was interviewed by four Latino journalists, and nobody asked him the question. He was prepared and nobody -- they were shocked. So they thought, well, how do we do this? So they came back and they said, well, I know, we'll talk off the cuff. We won't make it a formal speech. And I don't want you to direct the remarks, the president said, because I've lived this.

SCHIEFFER: You know, Michael Scherer, you wrote the cover story on Trayvon, and TIME decided kind of at the last minute to make that the cover story. Why did you do that?

MICHAEL SCHERER, TIME: Because of the social impact of that. And again, that -- after the trial concluded it became clear that this wasn't about the legal system, it wasn't about the jury verdict. It was about the two reactions Americans were having to this. I mean, you took polls during the trial, and you found that blacks were watching it at twice the rate of whites, that whites still were asking questions about what had happened in the struggle. We still don't know the answer of that. Whereas blacks saw this clearly as a story not just about profiling but also about their place in America after the Obama presidency.

SCHIEFFER: Were you somewhat surprised that some people seemed to take some umbrage at this, almost suggesting the president was a racist for bringing this up? I didn't kind of see it that way. I saw it as someone who said, look, I think it's time we all just kind of -- I would like for everybody to just stop and think about this a little bit and think about what -- kind of what it's like.

SCHERER: I think that actually is one of the most interesting story lines here about Obama. He got into politics because he wanted to address these issues. He was actually very effective in 2008 in addressing these issues during the campaign. And since he has been president, he hasn't been, because every time he speaks he becomes more divisive, he tends to muddy the conversation. When I talked to him after the election in 2012, he said that one of the things he had written down on his yellow note pad of what he wanted to do in the second term was criminal justice reform, which was surprising because he hasn't talked about it during the campaign but he still thinks very much about these issues. He's just very aware of his own limits in pushing the national conversation forward. And I think you saw him coming out Friday, saying enough is enough, I'm not going to stay quiet on this because my advisers were warning me that maybe there is, you know, political downside to doing this.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think we'll hear more from him on this?

IFILL: I think we're going to hear more from this. When you talk about criminal justice reform, he is in lockstep with his attorney general, who also feels strongly, who also came out and spoke to two large black audiences, one in Orlando, not from Sanford, Florida, at NAACP this week. And they believe this is the beginning, because the bottom line for them -- I had a fairly senior White House official say to me that they are convinced that if Trayvon Martin were white he would be alive today.

SCHIEFFER: You know the part that I -- really gives me pause, and that is this idea of a six-person jury. You know, how many times have we heard over the years a jury hung 10-2, or 10-1 -- or 11-1. You know, somehow or another, six people -- and I mean to cast no aspersions on the six people. These were six people and this is the way the jury system works in this country. But it -- in a funny kind of way it seems to me it's very easy to manipulate six people when it's much harder when it's 12.

DAVID IGNATIUS, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: The president didn't bring that up. One interesting thing about his remarks, which I thought were the most amazing few minutes of his presidency that I can remember...

SCHIEFFER: Really?

IGNATIUS: Yes, because it was so raw and personal and, yet, also, I thought presidential. But he said this isn't the fault of our jury system. Reasonable doubt in these criminal cases is appropriate. He said specifically, don't expect -- African-Americans who are upset about this, don't expect a federal response, it's not likely. He said specifically, don't look to me to lead a national conversation on race. That -- those never work. So I thought it was an honest speech on many different levels. And I thought it showed a kind of leadership that so often, with this reticent president, I felt was missing.

SEIB: You know, it is remarkable to think you could have a president of the United States stand up and say, "I remember a time when I walked down the street and people's car doors locked because they were afraid of me." I mean, I think the president thought really long and hard about this.

IFILL: Not long ago. Not long ago.

SEIB: Not long ago. Not 10 years ago, you know, six or seven years ago.

IFILL: Yeah.

SEIB: I think he thought really hard about how he could do something that literally he is the only person on earth who could do, which was to speak to the country as the president but about what it's like to be a black man in this country. And I think he decided that he could do this without either second-guessing the judicial system, on the one hand, or stoking racial tensions on the other. That's a hard thing to do.

SCHIEFFER: Susan?

PAGE: You know, we talk about the limits of a second-term president, and we see that when we talk about the issue of immigration, for instance, the greater difficulty he has in getting political clout for that. This is an advantage of a second-term president. Because I think he feels freer to talk about issues of race that he was reticent to talk about when he was going to run for office or face reelection. And so I think Gwen is probably right that this is -- the first line of his biography is going to say, "He was the first African- American elected president." That's part of his legacy. I think we're going to see him dealing more with this with the freedom that comes with a second term.

DICKERSON: In talking with somebody close to the president, we went all the way back to his candidacy, and it was based on the hope that America was ready for an African-American president and that, five years later, he's basically -- on Friday -- he was placing the same bet that he was trying to make a nuanced pitch, trying to slide it in there, very complicated. But he was basically making the same bet, is the country still ready for me to make this kind of a statement? You know, it's not just that he's the president. He's the -- he also spoke as a law professor. He also spoke as both somebody who said Trayvon could have been his son and "It could have been me." As Jerry says, he's the only one who could have done this. And it was faith in the audience, and I don't know if that audience is still there.

SEIB: But I do think he's going to do it sparingly. I think he believes this is a currency that he could squander if he uses it too much. And he doesn't want to be the African-American president. He wants to be the president who is African-American. And I don't think he wants -- I think he wants to pick the right spots and pick them sparingly to make this kind of statement.

IFILL: There's another piece, and that's what the black audience was seeing in what he was saying. There was a -- there was a lot of speculation the day of the talk that he was giving in to pressure from Civil Rights leaders and others who were demanding that he speak, when in fact, when they were asked what the president should do, they said to the White House, he doesn't have to say anything; Eric Holder spoke; that's nine. They were giving him a pass. But he said he didn't want this pass. So part of it was, yeah, speaking to white people, white voters, America at large, but speaking very specifically to African-American who were getting exhausted by -- remember the woman who came out and said she was exhausted by defending the president. There was a lot of exhaustion, especially behind the emotion among young people about this verdict. And so I think he felt he had to speak specifically and say not only to white folks, understand what black folk -- what the pain is that black folks are feeling but also to black people themselves that "I get you; I am your African-American president."

SCHIEFFER: What happens, Michael, now?

SCHERER: I think one of -- the most interesting question for me is how does the black community respond? It's clear we -- we are a country who can elect a black president. We are a country who can have a black attorney general. We're not a post-racial society. And the black community, over the last five years, has actually gone backwards in a lot of ways, you know, was hurt harder by the recession than other groups, still has enormous unemployment rates, still has issues of racial profiling, enormous frustrations. And there's two stories that are being told. You have a black community that actually out-performed whites in the 2012 elections in terms of turnout and yet continues to be incredibly frustrated that they're not being represented. And I think this is going to be one of these crucial moments when we look back to see, is this community, as a political community, able to move beyond, in terms of organization, the goal of having African-American leaders -- because they have that now -- to actually moving the ball towards improving the situation they're in? And I think there's a lot -- you talk to pastors in the black churches -- there's a lot of enthusiasm right now for really seizing this moment to do that, and I think that will be the next -- the next story.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, I'll tell you what, let's take a break right here, and then we'll come back and talk about this and other things in a minute.

SCHIEFFER: Susan, I want to get back to health care. Speaker Boehner said they are determined and he said they're not giving up on killing the president's health care -- health care plan. Now, we know the Senate is not going along with that. They would not go along with that. We know the president has said he would veto any bill that did that. Is health care in doubt right now, this plan going into effect?

PAGE: Well, legislatively Republicans will not be able to kill the Affordable Care Act. Nut, you know, Republicans, especially Republican governors, can make it impossible for it to succeed, especially in some states. More than half the states are refusing to set up the state exchanges that are supposed to open October 1st. That makes it harder for those to work. And almost half the states are refusing to participate in the expansion of Medicaid, which is one of the biggest provisions to cover people who do not have health insurance now. So I think the chances -- I think the Affordable Care Act is in some peril in terms of working the way it was supposed to work and Americans feeling like it's worked.

DICKERSON: You ask John Boehner what's the president's agenda, he says, "I don't know what the president's agenda is." The president -- I mean, the White House told me he starts almost every meeting saying, "Where are we on health care?" This is his number one agenda item, left over from the first term. He's making sure this gets implemented and put in place. So if you want a single illustration of the differences between John Boehner and the president, here you have the president focused on getting it implemented, John Boehner saying he's focused on tearing apart something that passed three years ago. We know it's about the elections coming up; his base really wants this done, but for a party that's trying to think about the future, is undoing a law from three years ago really the best argument you want to make when you're trying to make a new case to the public about a plan for the future from Republicans?

IFILL: Well, the fight is playing out in the states. Susan's completely right. They can talk about it and they can try, what, 40 times to repeal it, in the House, as much as they've tried? But in the end, states not taking found money for this Medicaid expansion is, kind of, remarkable, and whether, in the next round of elections, next round of tests, we see whether that really sustains, is going to be a key to whether this health care plan can be reasonably implemented, even with delays, even with other plans along the way.

SCHIEFFER: We've got to talk, a little bit, about foreign policy here. David Ignatius, John Kerry is trying to get the Middle East peace talks going again. We still have the Syrian civil war out there. What's the news?

IGNATIUS: Secretary of State Kerry had almost become a subject of, kind of, muttering gossip. He's taken six trips to the Middle East in his first six months as secretary of state, and a lot of people thought that he was just going nowhere. On Friday, he announced that he is on the verge of having talks between Israel and the Palestinians about a final status agreement. They're going to be a last round of talks about talks, but they'll happen this week here in Washington. The negotiators will come together. Kerry, you'd have to say, has stuck with this. He's been living this issue every day as secretary of state -- sadly, to the exclusion of others -- but really for much of his career, and so, you know, he's believed that face-to-face diplomacy, keeping it all in his head, not sharing it with anybody -- to this day we don't know many details about what he's doing. That was the way to go. And, at least on Friday, there was some sign that he may be right.

IFILL: But isn't there...

SCHIEFFER: And what about -- let me just ask Jerry about Syria, because we have got to get to that. It's still there.

SEIB: It's still there. It's not getting any better. I think the -- the effect of the American decision to start arming the rebels hasn't really been seen yet. That's only starting. It's going to happen slowly. I think Syria has, sort of, descended into a kind of a stalemate, and that's not a good thing for anybody. It's better than some of the alternatives, which was a total eruption of the place into a kind of a failed state. But I think the last chapter in the Syria story has not even begun to be written, much less been told yet.

IGNATIUS: If I could just say, Bob, I think the biggest danger on the ground is that Syria is dissolving as a country. It is heading toward a de facto partition, much the way Lebanon was during its long civil war. All the people who are on the ground tell me that. And it's going to be a fractured country where al Qaeda has put down deep roots. And Americans don't realize, al Qaeda really controls the northeastern part of Syria now. That's dangerous. The Obama administration has -- you'd have to say, a half-hearted program. They finally broke a logjam in the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, it will go forward. But even administration officials know it's not going to tip the balance.

SCHIEFFER: And I have got to ask you, last week on this broadcast, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, said the United States has got to take more seriously and act with more urgency on this question of Iran developing a nuclear weapon.

SEIB: Yes, I think the Netanyahu fear here is that while he's happy to be engaged in diplomacy with the Palestinians and happy to have the U.S. engaged in trying to sort out Syria, the big fear in Israel is those things become diversions to topic A, A1, which is what's happening with the Iranian nuclear program. I think there's a great deal of fear right now that that's slipping away, that the election of a new president in Iran is going to open the door to diplomacy and conversations, which are only going to get in the way of dealing with the real issue. So I think the fear in Israel right now is that all of these things combined have had the perverse effect of pushing the top issue down the list further than it needs to be. And you're going to hear the Israelis talking about that a lot more in the next few weeks.

SCHIEFFER: You know, I would just close with this thought because we're out of time. Does anybody remember when it used to be summertime in Washington...

(LAUGHTER)

SCHIEFFER: ... and nothing ever happened? People always went on vacation. And we are overloaded with news.

SEIB: I'm up for that, again.

SCHIEFFER: I'm kind of ready for that, too. I want to thank all of you for being with us this morning, very interesting discussion. I'll be back with this week's "FACE THE NATION Flashback" in just a minute.

SCHIEFFER: In this era of political gridlock, it's easy to forget there was a time when America thought big and did big things. Forty-four years ago yesterday an American became the first man to walk on the Moon, fulfilling a promise that President Kennedy had made eight years before. That is our "FACE THE NATION Flashback."

JOHN F. KENNEDY, 35TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard. SCHIEFFER (voice-over): It was 1961, America had fallen behind the Russians in the space race, and the president issued a call to action: get to the Moon and do it fast. The Apollo space program became a national priority. In 1968, Apollo 8 successfully orbited the Moon. But it was the crew of Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, who finally met Kennedy's challenge in June of 1969.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What a moment, man on the way to the Moon.

SCHIEFFER: The mission was smooth sailing from the start, and after a four-day, 250,000-mile journey, Armstrong and Aldrin landed Lunar Module Eagle in the Moon's Sea of Tranquility.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Putting feet down, two-and-a-half, picking up some dust.

SCHIEFFER: Walter Cronkite, CBS News resident space buff...

WALTER CRONKITE, CBS ANCHOR: Boy.

SCHIEFFER: ... was rendered temporarily speechless, but the moment we all remember came later that evening.

CRONKITE: Boy, look at those pictures. Wow. Armstrong is on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, 38-year-old American, standing on the surface of the Moon.

NEIL ARMSTRONG, FIRST MAN ON THE MOON: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

SCHIEFFER: After nearly 22 hours on the Moon's surface, Armstrong and Aldrin packed up and headed home. They arrived, safely, of course, but their hero's welcome came through plated glass.

RICHARD NIXON, 37TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Gee, you look great. Do you feel as good as you look?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We feel just perfect, Mr. President.

SCHIEFFER: A reminder of what this country was once capable of, reaching for the Moon and getting there. Our "FACE THE NATION Flashback."

SCHIEFFER: And we'll be back here next week, but before we go we want to wish former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole a very happy birthday. He turns 90 years old tomorrow. Happy birthday, Mr. Leader. Thanks for watching.