Journal this morning. See you tomorrow morning at 7 00 eastern time. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] coming up live, army chief of staff general ray odierno will discuss the impact of budget cuts on the military and how that is shaping their strategy, Going Forward, hosted by the American Enterprise institute. Eastern, today at noon alan krueger, the white house chief Economic Advisor will be interviewed at a political event. Administration, treasury, and at the white house since 2009, stepping down to return to princeton this fall. The first lady reflects the schism in the United States about what women are supposed to be today. Are we supposed to be mom in chief, 1st meet mate . That the president is supposed to be head of state and government is the first lady supposed to be in ideal fashinista, mom helpmate . St if she is going to be the first helpmate, she has to know what is going on in the administration, country, and she has to understand her husbands political agenda. So you cannot separate how the first lady presents herself, and the conflicting expectations that the country still has a mothers. Ing wives and as we continue the conversation on first ladies, the role of the first lady and its move from a Traditional Home and family to activism on behalf of important issues and the transitioning of public back to private life. The role of the at the white house today, president obama is scheduled to have lunch with secretary of state Hillary Clinton. No details and with the two will discuss. Mrs. Clinton has been talked about as a leading democratic president ial candidate but she has not indicated any intention to run. Israeli and palestinian officials are gathering to resume a new round of peace talks. Resumption of talks was made possible by a decision from israels cabinet yesterday to free 104 long held prisoners in four stages. That release was part of a led byd agreementat the white secretary of state john kerry. Secretary john kerry will deliver a statement to the press at 11 00 today, including a aboutnel announcement the middle east envoy. Congress is returning for their final week before the august recess. The house of gavels in tomorrow at noon eastern with legislative work expected at 2 00. House lawmakers will also take of a bipartisan compromise bill to address a doubling of student Loan Interest rates. The latest version of the bill was approved by the senate last week. You can watch the house live here on cspan. On cspan2, the senate will be back live with their work on bills regarding the transportation regarding transportation and housing and urban development. With federal spending running out at the end of a september, we spoke with a reporter to find out more about the upcoming congressional agenda and upcoming debt negotiations ceiling. Host at the table is gail russell chaddock. Thank you for being here. This is the final week before the august break in congress. The question for our guest is, what does Congress Want to or need to accomplish this week and what is the general mood on the hill heading into the break . Guest my sense is they are already thinking about 2014 elections in a big way. They want to leave this week with a strong message to take back to their constituents. Host what are the messages from each side being crafted . Guest what republicans agree on emphatically is that health care reform, obamacare, is going to destroy the economy and its needs to be repealed. That is why next week they are it. It will be their 40th. They are not seeing very dramatic increasingly its libertarian wing and establishment republicans, john mccain would find himself surprise to among the establishment republicans. Host how bad on the democratic side . Guest i think there is more unity. They have a strong theme. If they can push the republicans to a full hearty the scoreboard for the elections. The conventional wisdom would be it is impossible for House Republicans to lose their majority. Gerrymandering has been so fine in art and there have been so many districts, it would be very hard to break them. A Government Shutdown could be added to the list. You could see Something Like dramatic turnout ships or germanic voter reddest or dramatic Voter Registration moves. Host our guest will be with us for 40 minutes to talk about congress as it heads into its august recess. It comes back in september. The numbers are on the bottom of the screen for our guest. The president is making a visit to the hill this week. What is he going to talk about and what is the significance yak significance . Guest last week he set out the Campaign Theme for the next cycle, jobs in the middle class. At a time when republicans are going to look like they are not willing to compromise on a lot of issues, the fact that he is making a visit up here sends a signal this is an Important Message for him to send, especially when he found Approval Ratings are so difficult. Traditionally that is a big educator. August recess. It comes backhosf tease of tape from congressman jim mcdermott. He is the Ranking Member on the subcommittee. He dismissed reports that the chief of staff was working on implementing the Affordable Care act. He added that the white house is inefficient on this build. [video clip] collects i am on the ways and means committee, i am the Ranking Member of the hill subcommittee, i have never seen him. Is that a problem . Theycts what it says is are going to make a good talk. The white house has been terribly inefficient in dealing with the promotion of their bill. The 2010 election was a referendum. Had a referendum on it. We lost to the house. You have to ask yourself, when is the white house going to get up and go . We have been prodding and talking and trying everything we can. Problemoing to have a between here and the beginning because it is law. Supreme court said it is the law of the land. It is going to be implemented. Guest you heard it right there, democrats are still that is when health care was just a promise. We have had several years to see what it is beginning to look like. Initially things like being able to put young adults up to family of 26 on the insurance policy, that has been an immediate sweetener. Now we are going to be seeing more. Were you able to keep your insurance . Have your rates gone up . I think when the white house pulls back implementation of the corporate side, that was a very important signal. A lot of people were beginning to say that this was a bill that imposes heavy requirements on businesses. A fulltime worker is 30. Even then copies are not hiring fulltime Workers Companies are not hiring fulltime workers. It makes it an even tougher pill. Host cbs pulls to the news cbs news did a poll recently. 39 feel they should repeal it. 36 say expand or keep it. As we go to the phones, congressman tom price from georgia has a bill on the floor. It would prohibit the Treasury Department from enforcing the healthcare law. Firstrom georgia is our caller on the democratic line. Atler basically you were asking republicans cut is not an economic policy. He is trying to get Immigration Reform for the hispanics and people who are over here illegal. Why not do Something Like the Feeder Program for the urban area. The black on appointment rate is the highest. The black Unemployment Rate is the highest. It is time to look to the black community and help. Guest i was stunned with the latest wall street journal and nbc poll that showed for the first time any roche in and support for this president among his strongest supporters, especially africanamerican voters. After all of this time, i think at some point the idea was that there would be something clear, and improvement. And i think especially the furtive truce the Trayvon Martin killings was another indication of what did this actually produce . Racial conditions in the country are also startling. Race relations have gotten worse since 2008. I think the caller raises an important point. Even though where even though the president is not up for reelection again, he certainly wants a host to support him for these legacy issues for the end of his term. He wants to do more things for the economy. He has to inspire people like you to vote. Ith the Approval Rating as is that is not likely to happen. Host we will go to robert in florida. Caller i am wondering what your guests take on it is with several large unions. I am not sure that the other union that have recently sent a letter to the congress, saying that they do not want to implement obamacare within their ranks, i think that is very telling, why the administration is out there trying to boost obamacare favorability with celebrities and sports teams. Thank you. Guest they were concerned about the Affordable Care act from the start because of some of the tradeoffs that were made, especially toward so called cadillac Healthcare Plans. Millions have made and or ms. Enormous sacrifices for decades. They have developed for themselves strong Healthcare Plans, and for them, the Affordable Care act is a significant step down. I dont think you are seeing anything here. Youre just seeing, as you point out, a very important moment, a group that had doubts about this from the start making points publicly. Host my guest covered congress from 2000 until last year. Gail russell chaddock has become the washington Political Editor for the Christian Science monitor. We will take more of your calls and tweets. Some of the pushback on healthcare made itself clear here we want to talk about 64 House Republicans who sent a letter to john boehner. To bring any legislation funding, what they call obamacare to the floor. 12 Senate Republican sent a letter to majority leader reid say they would back it supported government bill unless excluded funds for healthcare. That is a lot of pressure. Guest yes, it is. It puts pressure on a speaker who came in he wanted to make, let the house work its will. Under Nancy Pelosis leadership, pretty strong guidance from the top. The speaker consistently refuses to say where he stands on issues. Beyond imposing or carrying out the role of its predecessor. That you dont bring a bill to the floor and listened as the majority of support in your own caucus. I would not be surprised if he used floor votes and news on this front just as he did last week with a remarkable bill by arguably his biggest opponent in the house, on a bill that really dig into what the nsa can do with spying. This was a bill that the speaker did not personally support, and he even came out against it, but he did a lowered onto the floor. I think youre going to have to see something similar here. He cannot crush the libertarian wing of this party. He has to give them votes. But you will see behind the scenes, as you did with this National Security bill, a lot of stumbling to make sure that before voting in the end goes with leadership. Host it is not often the speaker makes a floor speech. Here is a speaker banner from wednesday on the obama agenda. [video clip] if the president wants to help, he ought to approve the Keystone Pipeline that has bipartisan support here in the house. He ought to work with us in the bipartisan majority to delay the healthcare bill about to give the american people, their family, and individuals the same rates he wants to give to big businesses. And he ought to stop threatening to shut down the government unless we raise taxes. Host a little bit of what the speaker wants there. And to twitter for our guest is it possible this time that republicans will not raise the debt ceiling . There is a lot going on here, government funding, healthcare, debt ceiling. Explain how they might all come together in the coming months. Guest they all come together in nine glorious days in september. Congress is here for another week, and then they go out for a month. And then they come back here that second week in september, be here for two weeks, then the house goes out, then they are back for a day, and then everything happens at once. The fiscal year ends, that means government is no longer funded and less they can agree on something. And then sometime after that, sometime between the first of october and the end of the year, technically the country runs out of money, and that is when a debt ceiling needs to be raised again. So all those things are happening at one time. What some would like to see is a grand bargain that includes raising taxes, cutting some entitlements, and spending cuts, but not to the level that was agreed to in the last fiscal cliff in 2011. Tothat time, congress agreed two things. One, cap on spending for the next 10 years, and two, we will have a sequester, which is about 100 million of cuts split between defense and domestic spending. So what youre going to see in september is a real fight over that. Democrats have already in the budget they presented said we dont respect those caps because we are going to have a grand bargain in september. Republicans said we already have a grand bargain, and those are going to run on. That will be enough to make it difficult. Then the libertarian wing of the Republican Party all have items. One, and the senate, we will not pass the spending bills unless obamacare is defunded, and either done or defunded. You will see a 20week abortion limit. It is a congress that has not function well or some would say even at all. But my only sense is that republicans are reading loud and clear if they should on the government again, it is going to be Something Like what happened to Newt Gingrich in 1995. Republicans have newly taken over the house, they provoked a crisis with president clinton, the Government Shutdown, twice actually. In the end, republicans were blamed, and it clobbered them in the next election. Republicans could actually lose the house over this. I think they will do Everything Possible to avoid a shutdown, but you are not going to hear a word of conflict until the last possible moment. Host back to your calls. New jersey, nick, democrat, thank you for waiting. Caller am i on . Host you are on. Caller i would like to ask a question about increases in healthcare, especially in my case. I am a 69yearold, retired man. My wife is only 62, she will be 63 in october. Here is my problem i have to pay for her health insurance. We are paying 1000 per month for blue cross blue shield. I received an email the new rates starting in september. 1502 a month. How is a Healthcare Plan helping me anyway . We make a little over 60,000 a year. To pay 18,000 for one year for healthcare seems insane. That is my question to you. Very you have said concisely what the problem is for democrats. With support of this bill. That is what you heard a congressman sound so urgent. We want the president out there using all of his eloquence to support the bill, and to convince people like you that yes it may be going up right now, however and the longer run, this is somehow good for the country. All of the people not currently covered will be covered, and that will be good for the country. But it is the case that is not obvious when you open the envelope and look at your own bill. It is going to be a tough one for democrats. I think they have delayed the business side, but individuals that arent currently covered are going to have to start buying premiums, including young people who may not think they are affected at all. Maybe they dont have good jobs, maybe theyre not working to their full capacity, and it is going to be a hit. I think a lot of people are going into the voting booths in november wondering about this bill just as you are. From here is a little way the president from earlier this week. [video clip] i am laying out my ideas to give the middle class a better shot. And if the republicans dont agree with me, i want them to lay out their ideas. If they have got a better plan to create jobs, to rebuild our infrastructure, and make sure that we have got great ports all along the gulf, come on, let me know what your ideas are. I am listening. If they have got better ideas to make sure that every american knows the security of a affordable healthcare, well, share it with the country. Repealing obamacare and slashing our budget is not an economic plan. There is no economist who would look at that and say that as a way we will help middleclass families. We will really grow doing that. Shutting down the government just because i am for keeping it open that is not an economic plan. Payatening that you wont the bills in this country when we have arty rack up those bills, that is not an economic plan. That is being a deadbeat. Host pushback there from the president. Guest what you just heard is kind of campaign boilerplate. Republicans have a different boilerplate. But that is the backandforth that has been going on for six years now. What republicans say in response is we will get the economy back by business, grading jobs, and why arent they created jobs. Too much regulation. You will hear on this week on the house floor 10 bills presented that will less regulation and protect americans from excessive government. They will talk about concern about spying, the irs scandal some months ago, preventing groups from getting taxfree status if they are too conservative. There will be a lot of