So if youre looking for a bank thats in your corner, tdd 18003452550 not just on the corner. Tdd 18003452550 call, click or visit to start banking with schwab bank today. Tdd 18003452550 who didnt love a little classic morque and mindy. If youre a Robin Williams fan, hes returning to the screen. Its called crazy wines. Im brooke baldwin. Thanks for being with me today. Lets go to washington. Situation room with wolf blitzer happening now. Thank you very much. New revelations about the super bowl blackout. The engineers predicted it had chance of failure. Well give you the most detailed information yet about how they pulled off a rescue of a little boy in alabama. And a brand new study shows you why its a brad idea to mix alcohol and diet soda. Im wolf blitzer and youre in the situation room. We begin this hour with president obamas very public attempt to Pressure Congress into putting off billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, cuts he fears will wreck the u. S. Economic recovery. Basically he wants lawmakers to kick the can down the road one more time. Lets go to our White House Correspondent dan lothian. Dan is joining us. Dan, the president made a little bit of a surprise appearance over in the White House Briefing room. Reporter thats right. Very surprising because the president in the past has criticized these shortterm deals saying that this is not what the American People sent their elected officials to washington to do. You have this march 1st deadline quickly approaching. While congress is trying to work on a bigger budget, 1 pine point 2 trillion package, the president says they need more time in order to continue tipping away at the problem. The big concern is that everyone believes that the economy is moving in the right direction. The president is pointing to auto sales, the housing, to manufacturing. And so theres this worry that if this see quester happens, if these deep cuts happen then it could be a major set back for the u. S. Economy. The president is saying the threat already is kauszing a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace. Weve also seen the effects that political dysfunction can have on our economic progress. The drawn out process for resolving the fiscal cliff hurt consumer confidence. The threat of massive automatic cuts have already started to affect business decisions. So weve been reminded that while its critical for us to cut wasteful spending, we cant just cut our way to prosperity. Deep, indiscriminate cuts to energy and National Security will cost us jobs and it will slow down our recovery. Its not the right thing to do for the economy. The president , of course, still wants a bigger deal here. In the meantime he wants a shortterm fix of spending cuts and tax revenue. Republicans, of course, are not happy with this strategy. One senator saying that the president needs to get serious about this pointing out that americans dont want anymore tax increases. Its a huge issue. Dan lothian at the white house. Thank you. Also at the white house today the president has been meeting with labor and Business Leaders to push his plans for comprehensive Immigration Reform. Later this hour ill speak with one of the people who are inside that meeting with the president , the Goldman Sachs ceo, lloyd blackfine. Hell be in the situation room. Well hear from a rising star, san antonio mayor, julio castro who came to discuss fixing immigration. All of that coming up. At the same time, the president was speaking to reporters at the white house. The republicans number two man in the house of representatives was in the middle of his speech debuting the Republican Party new message to voters. Eric cantor gave our chief Congressional Correspondent dana bash a preview. Listen to this. Theres a lot of lessons to be learned from the last election and, you know, frankly there are a lot of moms and dads out there that are hurting right now. A lot of working people are having a real struggle trying to get through the month and too Many Americans out of work. I think what we all need to do is focus on how were going to make life work for those people again. Our chief political analyst, gloria borger, is here. What is eric cantor trying to accomplish now . Hes trying to reshape the Republican Party. Theyve got to rethink their strategy and that bite that you just showed really illustrates it, wolf. I was talking to one republican strategist today about eric cantors speech and the entire process thats going on in the Republican Party, and he said, quote, we need to finish the sentence. The Republican Party spent over a billion dollars trying to sell mitt romney and to the American People, and they didnt finish the sentence. What we see him going back to is that growth and opportunity message personalized beyond we need to cut government, we need to cut the debt. There seemed to be some serious divisions within the Republican Party right now, the tea Party Faction right now. How much influence does it have . I think it has to say that the tea party has receded a bit. Im not saying they have disappeared, it has not, but its receded a little bit into the background. Theres lots of decentralized grassroots groups often do. Its given the House Speaker and eric cantor a little bit more breathing room to do things they may have wanted to do from early on, particularly the speaker which has cut a deal on the fiscal cliff, pushed back the debt ceiling issue so that they can breathe a little bit and try and move away from just these fiscal sues. Now on the horizon there are lots of House Republicans, particularly younger ones, who say lets cut the defense budget, let those automatic spending cuts take place, and there are lots of Senior Republicans who say, not so fast. So thats going to be a problem within the Republican Party as we look ahead. Where does karl rove and his new super pac fit into that . Did you ever think republicans would call him a rhino, republican in name only. Here you go. Ive always thought of karl rove as a conservative. Whats going on is his pac has said, you know what, we are tired of someone associated with his pac said to me, quote, the novelty of losing elections has worn off, and what theyve decided to do is to start putting their money in primaries. They want to vet republican primary candidates so that by the time they get to the general election they believe they have qualified vetted candidates who can actually win. Conservatives are saying, this is not what you should do. You need to let the process work itself out and american crossroads is saying, dont sacrifice ideological purity here. You cant worship at that. What you really need to do is win elections and thats what they say their Political Action committee is about. So there is a fight brewing on that front as well. Theyre trying to learn some lessons from what happened in missouri and indiana in the last cycle, for example. Absolutely. When you had candidates who won the primary but couldnt win a general election. Yeah. They say it could have been avoided in both of those races. They also say, look, we have contributed to lots of conservative candidates. For example, ran paul. They gave more money to ran paul than anybody else, but it is a fight that will continue. Happened in nevada, color rad did he and delaware in 2010. Karl rove trying to learn a lesson. Thanks very much, gloria, for that. Lets go to new orleans right now where it turns out there were plenty, yes, plenty of warning signs that the superdome wasnt necessarily completely ready for sundays super bowl. As we learn more about the blackout that delayed the game for almost 35 minutes, we found one memo actually predicting a critical piece of Electrical Equipment had, and im quoting now, a chance of failure. Brian todd is in new orleans, hes following the investigation for us. Whats the latest, brian . Reporter one city official tells us this is the most analyzed piece of electricity in history. We do have new information on concerns about the power supply in the month leading up to the super bowl. In the months leading up to super bowl xlvii, there were worries and warnings among superdome officials about the stadiums power situation. Thats from memos from the superdome management group. October 15th, 2012, a memo from pat toppler refers to transient spikes in loads in the system that had previously occurred. The concern whether the connection point from the grid to the superdome was reliable. This memo says a test determined that the power feeder line had some decay and had a chance of failure. A letter five days before that from an outside engineer hired by the superdome said based on test results, the superdomes main and only electrical feed are not sufficiently liable to support the high profile event schedule. And in response to that entergy and superdome services constructed a whole new vault that the concerns that were brought out in those memos were addressed. We will have the analysis and the data on friday hopefully. Reporter do you know if it functioned properly . I dont have that information right now. Thats why the company that that equipment belongs to, theyre coming in to analyze their their equipment. Reporter a vault is the structure that houses switching gear for power feed lines. City Council Woman cynthia hedge morell has called an emergency meeting. According to minutes of meetings obtained by cnn, hundreds of thousands of dollars were allocated to upgrade the lines into the superdome. One person says it was done in december of 2012. Whats the culprit . It could be a switch gear. Entergy says one switch gear tripped due to an anomaly. Power was rerouted to the superdome through an auxiliary line, but all the systems needed to be rebooted before it came on line and the game could resume. Its bringing the switch gear maker on site to determine if that was the cause. All parties involved, not only the owners of the equipment, the people that developed the equipment, we have all of them coming in. Everybodys going to analyze their equipment. We have the Real Time Data from entergy because thats done on a minutetominute basis. Reporter and were told this afternoon that the power company, entergy, along with the superdomes management group, are planning to hire an i independent Third Party Manager to analyze that. What about the accounts that suggest that beyonces rehearsal tripped the power during the week before the super bowl . Reporter those are anecdotal accounts, wolf, that we got yesterday and today on the ground. We heard from cbs analyst, boomer ee psy a san, out of new york that he heard the same thing. Weve been pestering people. Nobody has said anything about this. Were checking it out now. The nfl does promise us an answer on this soon. Maybe theyre investigating that as well. Brian todd investigating himself in new orleans for all of us, doing excellent work as he always does. Brian, thank you. Were also learning new details about yesterdays dramatic new rescue of a boy who had been kidnapped and held in an underground bunker for a week. The rescue involved a secret camera and an fbi special rescue team. Martin savidge is joining us. Martin, what have you learned . Reporter wolf, authorities still are not allowing the media any access to where the rescue took place or the bunker where the little boy was held for a week. Theyre citing thats still the crime scene. They also say there are other explosive devices and that could be a safety hazard. Theyre not saying anything about the rescue, only that it worked. We have been able through a number of sources to piece together what happened and take a look. For days as the command center in a nearby church continued to grow, authorities remained in constant communication with jimmy lee dykes reportedly speaking through a pipe that ran into his bunker. Dykes even allowed authorities to deliver comfort items through the hatch. He allowed us to provide color books, medication, toys. Reporter dykes was said to be caring for the boy, providing even an electric heater and blankets to keep him warm, leaving the authorities to take the unusual step of taking care of the boy. I want to thank him for taking care of our child. All seemed fine until sunday afternoon when negotiators noticed a change in his behavior. Reporter Law Enforcement sources on the scene say a special camera was used to monitor what was going on inside the bunker. Meanwhile, highly trained Fbi Hostage Rescue Teams like this one in an fbi training video took turns on stand by around the clock. Sources say those rescue teams practiced their assault on a mockup of dykes bunker. Monday authorities continue to monitor the change in dykes demeanor. Publicly they gave no clue. But hinted he had a motive. He had a story that was very complex. Reporter a team was quietly put on alert and brought in. Then came the critical moment. Mr. Dykes was observed was observed holding a gun. Reporter thats when the hrt team struck. Byron martin is a neighbor. I heard a big boom and then i heard i believe i heard rifle shots. Fbi agents fearing the child was in imminent danger entered the bunker and rescued the child. Reporter sources tell cnn they tossed flash bang bombs into the bunker. They shot the gunman multiple times killing him. 5yearold ethan was unharmed. It was all over for seconds. For a clearly exhausted dale county sheriff, wally olson, it was a relief. We appreciate everybody in Law Enforcement pulling together to get this job done. Thank you. Reporter in a lot of ways, wolf, that was the culmination of hundreds of Law Enforcement officers working to rescue that little boy, not to mention probably thousands of prayers from people within this community. People not only in the community, all over the country, dairy say all over the world. People were watching this case very, very closely. So lets look a little bit ahead. Where do we all go from here now that it has been resolved . Reporter of course, the biggest concern is for ethan himself. Tomorrow, by the way, he will turn 6. Theres a big celebration. In fact, this park is going to be part of a candlelight vigil. They were having candlelight vigils efrp night while he was in captivity. This is another candlelight vigil to wish him happy birthday and to embrace the fact that hes alive. Wed like to wish him happy birthday not only from me and you but from all of our viewers in the situation room. Thank you for that report. Stay with cnn for more on what may be ahead for this little alabama boy and his family. Later tonight john walsh will join Anderson Cooper alive. Tonight ac 360 8 00 p. M. Eastern. One of bill clintons former doctors has a significant warning for the new jersey governor Chris Christie. The governor keeps treating his weight as if its something to laugh about, but this doctor is not very happy about that. Announcer the situation room by wolf blitzer is brought to you by v8 fusion juice. Could have had a v8. [ male anno] how about v8 vfusion. A full serving of vegetables, a full serving of fruit. But what you taste is the fruit. So even you. Couldve had a v8. But what you taste is the fruit. Did you just turn your ringer off so no one would interrupt and. Us . One. Oh no, i. Just used my geico app to get a tow truck. Its gonna be 30 minutes. Oh, so that means that we wont be stuck up here, for hours, with nothing to do. Oh i get it, you wanna pass the time, huh. holds up phone fruit ninja emergency roadside assistance. Just a click away with the geico mobile app. Im here to pick up some cacti. It should be under stephens. The verizon share everything plan for small business. Get a shareable pool of data. Got enough joshua trees . On up to 25 devices. So you can spend less time. Yea, the golden barrels. Managing wireless costs and technology and more time driving your business potential. Looks like were going to need to order more agaves. Ah oh ow . And more bandages. Thats powerful. Shareable data plus unlimited talk and text. Now save 50 on a droid razr maxx hd by motorola. New jerseys republican governor Chris Christie is trying to laugh off what potentially could be a problem as he seeks reelection this year, possibly runs for the white house in 2016. Lets bring in our National Political correspondent, jim acosta. Hes walking into the situation room right now. Its a sensitive subject, i admit. Whats the latest. This is a serious situation, wolf. He is taking it lightly. He may be able to take the punch lines about his waistline, but with him up for reelection and a potential candidate for 2016, the question is how long can he laugh it off. I talked to a former white house doctor today who warns that his health is like a ticking time bomb. Reporter sitting down with late night talk show host David Letterman, Chris Christie made light of a difficult subject. Ive made jokes about you, not just one or two, here or there, intermittent, but reporter in a sign the popular new jersey governor may be weighing a bid in 2016, he tried to give himself a clean bill of health. Basically the healthiest fat guy youve ever seen. Reporter its no laughing matter to dr. Connie mariano. I worry that he may have a stroke or a heart attack unless he addresses that before office. Reporter mariano, who helped president bill clinton with his own battle of the bulge, wants christie to run, preferably on a treadmill. Im a republican. I like Chris Christie a lot. I want him to run. I want him to lose weight. I worry about this man dying in office. I want to see you all moving, right . Reporter dr. Mariano says Michelle Obamas antiobesity agenda is a great campa