honors at his funeral today. we are joined live from prague with more on that, atika shubert. reporter: we are expecting heads of state, heads of government and personal friends of pavel to come today, many dissidents who were in prison with him when he was jailed by the communist regime here. we had an extraordinary sight here at the grounds of prague castle last night. we saw tens of thousands of people coming to pay their last respects to vaclav havel, putting flowers by his coffin. it was an extraordinary scene when people talked about how much he men the to them and how he represented freedom. and atika, in terms of the kind of legacy he leaves behind, what are people saying was his biggest impact? reporter: they say, of course, his biggest impact was simply leaving the velvet revolution here in the czech republic, that peaceful transition away from that authoritarian communist regime to democracy as he, of course, became the first president of the czech republic.
way. in the end house speaker john boehner, he caved in and he gave in to political pressure but still he defends the stand that he took. we have fought the fight, the good fight, but i talked to enough members over the last 24 hours who believe that, hey, listen, we don t like this two-month extension. we don t like this reporting problem in the senate bill and if you can get this fixed, why not do the right thing for the american people even though it s not exactly what we want. it seems that everything we ve done this last year has been a knockdown dragout fight. there is no reason to do that. if there were a message received from this last thing we ve been through, i would hope especially i repeat the new members of the house will understand that legislation is the art of compromise. now the tax cut deal is a win for the president. he pushed back pretty hard against house republicans who opposed the short-term extension. white house did issue a statement saying, i q
he s going to have some time to relax with his family. this is a good time for him to reflect in hawaii. it is not just where he grew up. let s not forget he was born, t.j., in hawaii. even though there was a controversy, a at least maybe some people still believe he wasn t born in hawaii. but he was born in hawaii. he s got a lot of old friends there. he deserves some time off. he s got a lot going on. but even as he s on vacation, every president is never completely on vacation. he ll have national security advisors with him. right now there s a crisis. there are plenty of international crises under way. north korea arguably one of the most dangerous spots on earth rye now with the death of the so-called dear leader, kim jong-il, the succession of his young untested son in his late 20s, kim jung un. tension on the korean peninsula very, very real right now. tension in iraq. we saw a wave of terrorist activities going on yesterday. tension in syria. pakistan. afghanistan. we
north korea. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. the showdown over the payroll tax cut lasted for weeks, but the stalemate ended in a matter of minutes today after house republican leaders bowed to overwhelming pressure and gave into the democrats. today, the house approved the bill that got almost 90% of support in the senate. president obama signed it into law and the threat of a new year s day tax hire for 160 working americans is over. let s go straight to dana bash who s watching this on capitol hill. must be pretty empty. it was exciting for a few minutes today. a few minutes, underline the word minutes. look, there is a lot of relief that this battle that consumed congress in these final days is over. especially for house republicans. the house will be in order. it was john boehner s decision to back down and he backed it up by presiding over passage of a short-term tax cut that many call a gimmick. hr 3765. a bill to extend the payroll tax holida
i m erin burnett and out front tonight, a deal, finally. a deal. house republicans agree to the senate s two-month payroll tax extension. this includes unemployment benefits and that doc fix that prevents people that take medicare doctors getting a big drop in payments. the house added one small tweak that will make it easier for employers to actually process the tax breaks since this really is the final hour before midnight on a tax change. the gop s image, though, has taken a beating. cnn orc poll found that when it comes to handling major issues, people have increasing confidence in president obama. look at him now, 50% have more confidence in him. back in march it was only 44. when you look at republicans in congress, 31% now versus nearly 40 in march. how damaging is this to the republican party? what can it do to fix its image as we head into iowa and a presidential election. senator scott brown joins us tonight. it s great to be on, erin. you know, i didn t know