But look in the mirror and hate yourself, not the people who are doing this work. It is the job of these senators to question policy but attacks are thats what you do instead of dealing with the policy issues. We have have a very distinguished member with us, a good friend of all of us, someone who deals seriously with policy issues and is joined us today and that would be january from illinois. Also i think today of most significance i believe is my role on the Intelligence Committee. All of us were given a briefing based on emerging information from the Intelligence Committee. Susan rice, i do susan rice went on television based on the information that was available at the time and the briefing that she was given information and intelligence that she had no part in collecting. The kind of statement that is anyone who had been given those briefings would have made in public. Obviously, this was on an unclassified buys sis but she was given information that she had that has subsequently been updated. It was not wrong or deliberately misleading in any way. There had been the belief that there had been a protest that developed into this attack. So susan rice as the president very clearly said, if anyone has a problem with the intelligence, they should take it up with the Intelligence Community and the president himself. He said come to me. And so to besmurg her incredible career and her stat chure and the words that came out of her mouth is completely inappropriate. And by the way inconsequential al. That is ive asked the question would anything had been different if the intelligence had been completely accurate at the beginning . Would there have been different actions taken in what turned out to be a tragic situation with the loss of the ambassador and other americans and the answer is absolutely no. So im a bit confused about the whole deal about this benghazi situation other than we all agree it was a tragedy that we had the loss of life. But its interesting to me that we arent discussing another rice who went before all of the sunday talk shows some years ago whose statements about false intelligence were based on more information than that held by susan rice about this situation. And talking about if we dont go into iraq now, then the next well here from sa dam had you sane is in the form of a Mushroom Cloud that really did move to us consequential actions, 446 u. S. Soldiers killed in iraq not to mention the other loss of life that occurred there. That really made a difference. And i would say that if you live in a glass house, dont throw stones. And there is no worthy reason to throw any stone at susan rice. Very profound if you live in a glass house cast no stones. Weve been joined by Laura Richardson from california. Thank you for joining us here. This very unqualified woman of course spear headed efforts to bring the International Sanctions against i ran, sanctions on iran, sanctions on north korea and has brought significant to bringing down kadafi. We now are going to hear from a very special colleague, terri sule from the seventh district of alabama. She has very special insight into the qualifications and integrity of susan rice. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. Today i stand with my colleagues, proudly stand with my colleagues in expressing our outrage about the unfair attacks against the u. S. Ambassador susan rice. These recent attacks are nothing short of offensive. Nothing short of offensive. Leading the charge to oppose ambassador rice are our senators who profess to want to block any potential nomination of this overly qualified public serve ant. And i for you cannot sit back like all of us and not say this is wrong. Its not only wrong, its actually unpatriot i can. To be clear, the attack on the American Embassy in benghazi in which four lives were lost deserves to be investigated and the full weight of the American Government should be used to finding and bringing the real cull patriots to justice. But to suggest that ambassador rice would knowingly and purpose sli mid lead the American People is not true. This should not be for political and personal gain. I am outraged that these republicans could even suggest that this administration and that this chief diplomat would be come police to us in this tragedy. Its offensive and unpatriot tick. He acted in good faith in reporting what she had been told by intelligence. She said quote based on the best judgment at the time. Senator mccains comments that ambassador rice is unqualified and not very bright is woefully untrue. With all due respect, senator mccain, i know susan rice. I have known her for 25 years. We were graduate students together at oxford and i can tell you without the glare of washington politics that susan rice is a brilliant scholar, a renound expert in her field, a woman of unquestionable judgment and tireless efforts to fight and be a servant on behalf of the American People. She has the character and the where with all if our president so chooses we could not have asked and would not ask for a better secretary of state than susan rice. Not only is she a brilliant scholar, the first africanamerican value dick attorney in at the Theater School in washington d. C. A road scholar, has won awords for her research in africa and foreign policy. She has an emp rare career in the Nations Service and one we should not sit by and let be tarnished. Is she is a wonderful Public Servant but she is a woman of character and a person i am proud to call my friend and more proud to call my u. N. Ambassador and would be even more proud to call her my secretary of state. So let us be clear it is unfair and i think unpatriot tick to assume that the chief diplomat would woefully, purposefully mislead the American Public. To be come police to us in this tragedy at all is offensive. I think we need to get back to the nations business and finding the real cull patriots who took the lives of the four americans. We need to leave the full weight of the American Government to find those cull patriots and leave ambassador rice alone to do her job. Lets get back to the work of the American People. As you can see there is a great deal of passion on this issue and to close us out its going to be a good friend and colleague of ours from california who herself has had years of distinguished leadership in the California Assembly as the speaker. Mad dam speaker. And really understands leadership abilities and what they are. Its very difficult to recruit qualified women and senator mccain should know that. It is very difficult to find qualified women to do this work and when we find qualified women, we should not preemptively because the president hasnt even indicated he would nominate her. He has many choices. We should not preemptively destroy the chances of women to serve us in this country. So i am introducing a woman who has distinguished herself. Shes a member from california and serves on the Foreign Affairs committee and is formally the speaker of the house of representatives from california karen bass. Good morning everyone. I am very proud to be here. Today is a day that i feel great pride of being a member of congress and standing up here with these distinguished women all of whom have so many accomplishments and weve heard so much today about the career and history of susan rice. So i stand with great pride with my colleagues. We all know what the real deal is. We knew what this story was before the election. It was about trying to undermine the election of president obama. After the election i think the real deal is our republican colleagues are disoriented and are in a tail spin since the election. They want to shoot, they dont know who to shoot or where the target should be so right now the target is on the back of susan rice. This has been very clear. I think you heard from my colleagues today specifically why there is no basis to the notion that ambassador rice would deliberately mislead the American Public. You have to ask yourself what could she possible gain from doing this. What the republicans are accusing her of is completely inconsistent with her 20 plus year history as a diplomat. All of her accomplishments both academic and professional. Im afraid my republican colleagues are trying to build a narrative in an attempt to derail a potential appointment to the state department, and an appoint. I might add that hasnt been proposed yet. We know over the last two years the number one goal of the republicans was to prevent the president from being reelected. They failed t. Message from the voters was for us to Work Together. We should be dealing with the fiscal issues facing our nation. We should be getting to the bottom of what happened in benghazi and what we need to do to protect the over 300 diplomats serving our nation around the world. And Congress Needs to make sure the state department has the resources to protect our diplomats. Ironically my same republican colleagues wanted to cut money from the budget that could have been used to protect diplomats and now theyre concerned about this. Our first order of business should be to prevent a fiscal crisis. If one occurs it will be because of our inaction. A fiscal crisis could take place. In january president obama will be sworn in again. The message from the voters is for us to Work Together. My republican colleagues over the holidays need to do some soul searching and ask themselves do they plan to spend the next four years chasing ghosts in an attempt now to derail his presidency . They should stop trying to smear and incredible academic and professional record. Im waiting for donald trump now to ask for her transcripts. We have to stop disrespected ambassador rice with the false implication that she deliberately misled the public. We will not stand for this nonsense any longer and negotiate will the American Public. Thank you very much. Thats our message and well take any questions but again we want them to take that back. Take back those words smearing her incredible accomplishments, the not so bright in particular, untrustworthy, how dear them. Thank you. How dare them. Yes, maam. You said that any time or one of you said any time something goes wrong they pick on a woman and a minority can you elaborate on that. Do you feel there is a degree of sexism and racism in their comments 1234 there is no question about it. All of the things that they have disliked about thanges have gone on in this administration, they have never called a male unqualified, not bright, not trustworthy. I dont recall that ever happening. They didnt even say that about general petraeus they are all up in arms about. So there is a clear in my opinion sexism and racism that goes with these comments being made by senator mccain and others and i strongly stand by that statement. Yes, maam. Even if shes not necessarily at fault for the information she was given, do you think the negative reactions of some make her too radio active to have a viable shot at making it through the nomination process . I think theyre trying to preempt that discussion but the reality is if you look at her record and her accomplish lts and her contributions to this nation, anybody who looks at that record and has a fair discussion with her would come one different conclusions. With all of the statement that is senator mccain has made, very negative ones about this administration and about susan rice, do you think hes not qualified to be a senator . Yes, sir. If susan rice wasnt the only one that spoke about this, the president spoke about it and others spoke about it. If president obama did in fact mislead the country on this, what do you think congress should do about it . That is a speculation. We dont know. We are all trying to find out what the facts are. And senator mccain doesnt know what happened. I think that what we are dealing with right at this moment is a signal from senator mccain that they are not going to cooperate with the Second Administration of barack obama, that they are going to stall out all of his nominations. This is their warning shot that they are going to filibuster her appointment and perhaps anybody elses. I think thats what it is. And here is the Intelligence Committee member. Again, im really confused. The only point in contention really is whether or not this attack emerged from a protest and as soon as the information became clearer and it did take some time for that to happen, then that was perfectly clarified. There is absolutely its inconceivable to me for anybody to speculate there would be a deliberate misleading of the American People. Why would there be . Its perfectly inconsequential al. There was a spontaneous demonstration and the terrorist groups organize niced to take tunistic advantage of it or not. In any case, there is no advantage to mislead the American People in that regard. I mean you have to have motivation behind it and there is none. And as soon as the intelligence became clearer and as a member of the committee, i was told exactly that, that there was this tchon administration and there were actually 12 different sources that thought that was true and that it came out that it actually wasnt and so we were briefed on it. But you have to have a reason for thinking that there would be a misleading and there isnt one. [inaudible] we were told that it appeared to be elements of terrorist organizations i think that the document, the unclassified document which the house Intelligence Committee asked for used the word extremist which the analyst believe is synonymous. Well take you live next to the fed list meeting. Mike lee one of the speakers at a discussion looking at the future of u. S. Constitutional law and the Supreme Court. Hes just been introduced and live here on cspan. I was very pleased when he was elected. I met him just a couple of years ago just after my election and just before he announced his candidacy. I especially look forward to no longer being the newest member of the senate. Its been a rough transition. The security staff is finally recognizing me as a senator. I no longer get carded. Im from utah. Im not used to getting carded. You laugh bit happened a lot when i first got there. They would look at me like what are you doing. These guys are heavily armed and i cant argue with them. And i would produce my i. D. And its a card saying United States senator representing utah expiration 2017. I dont know whether thats when i personally expire or [laughter] but we went through this sha raid so often when i had to go vote. I discovered a short cut to it. This lapel pin was given to me after i was sworn in. I came to call it my sorry senator pin. When i got carded i would point to it and they would say sorry senator, come on in. It works most of the time. Not all the time. One time i was on the floor of the senatened i had one hand resting on a desk and one of the nonuniform security staffers said will you please not lean on the senators desk. I thought it was weird that he didnt say dont lean on your desk. I said im terribly sorry it wont happen again. And he said are you with the minority . I said what do you mean on this vote or the next. I dont always vote with my party. He said do you of course i support Mitch Mcconnell hes our leader. Are you part of the minority leader staff and i realized he doesnt get it so i pointed to the pin. Blank stare and at that point i said im senator lee. What . My name is mike lee, i represent a state called utah. It resemiles a chair. Its square. He finally got it at that point he said im terribly sorry my name is steve if you want to report me and he ran for the door. I felt bad for steve. I like steve. I chased after him to make sure he knew no hard feelings. So every time i see him in the hall i say high so he knows there are no hard feelings. Although it did occur to me, his name is probably not steve. [laughter] so when i started this year, 2010 i was looking forward to two things, two steps that i believed would help us fundamentally transform our government into that kind of government or something more cleesly representing or resemithaling kind of government that our Founding Fathers envisioned for us. One of those events i knew would occur in june, probable toward the end of june probable the last thursday in june chi quickly identified as june 28. The other date that i recognize as potentially transform ma tive of our government, the other date that i recognize that i thought would probably have a positive impact on the development of our constitutional system of government was november 6. And i would just like to say at the out set that i want to thank chief Justice Roberts for preparing me john june 28 for the disappointment i would feel on november 6. I approached the court that day with a lot of anticipation. I had read all the breefs in that case and sat through four days of oral argument in that case. I had watched every movement, every eye twitch, every response to every question, every facial expression and i had listened closely to all the questions that they had asked. I thought i knew what the answer was going to be. A lot of it was wishful thinking. But i approached the courtroom that day with a lot of anticipation and a lot of hopefulness. As i took my seat in the bar session of the Supreme Court that day. I look to my right and slightly behind me to the section of the courtroom where the law clerks sit. I remembered just a few years earlier when i served aze a law clerk and sat in those chairs and i remembered how much fun it was to watch the justices announce a decision that they had been working on. We knew the result before the rest of the audience did. It was fun to watch their reactions. Then i looked to my right and to the front of me and i saw that podium where ive seen so many lawyers stand over the years. Countless lawyers ive seen stand there ever sinc