Confrontational across the board. I dont expect to see much of a change on that. On one issue even though proposing new initiatives that will cost money, not massive new stimulus, but he will make what white house officials are describing as a progressive case for deficit reduction, that that still needs to be done even entitlement reform, and the progressive case is if these programs continue to grow out of control, they crowd out other initiatives, other priorities that are, you know, that progressives hold dear on education, on infrastructure, you know, social programs. Well, one of the other things well see, congressman ellison, you and several other members of the Democratic Caucus will bring guests into the chamber victims of gun violence. Thats right. As a matter of fact, young man named semi rahiman, who lost his father in a tragic event in minneapolis will join me and jim langua languagevin and our colleagues, about 30 members who are inviting victims of gun violence to be in the gallery looking forward to them being with us because they theyre witnesses to the need for sane, sensible reform in the area of gun violence prevention. Congressman cole, whats your sense of what can get done on that this year . Gabby giffords will also be in the hall also on tuesday. It seems to me reading the tea leaves, that some kind of consensus is building around universal background checks with the assault weapons ban likely to go nowhere. In the assault weapon ban, youre absolutely correct. Look, it starts in the senate and well see what harry reid can get done. Most of the key players, nra ratings including the majority leader, chairman leahy, six democrats up in states that the president got 42 or less in. I dont think theyll be too enamored with him, so i think that pushes you toward things like background checks and the house, its going to be tougher. I mean thats just the reality of it politically. So i would expect something to be done. I think theres going to be a lot of hearings but probably more in the Mental Health area, potentially in some of the background check areas, but anything that hints towards national regs wont make it and anything that really materially makes it more difficult for people to exercise Second Amendment rights wont happen. I tell you, i dont agree. I hope that i think the odds of something happening are determined by the determination of people who push those things. And when the folks are going to be joining me and jim langevin, we dont want to take the rights of owning a gun away. I own a gun myself, but i do believe when you have 20 dead first graders, we need action in this country and im most nra members agree. Let me bring in Stephanie Cutter. Where the president puts emphasis on tuesday night, i heard jon karl say, i think thats right, big focus on jobs. One thing you are seeing is president obamas Approval Rating coming in at 52 . That has if about where thats welcome back president bush had it his second term. President clinton below. How do you have him handle the rest . He will do what he has been doing. You use the word confrontational. I would use a different word. They will be very familiar themes. The economy will be central and how we can grow it. So everybody can participate. Fair shot, pay your fair share but other things that he does lay out, hell lay out the looming deadline on the sequester and tough choices we have to make around it and consequences if we let the sequester go into effect and, you know, cuts to some pretty critical programs, so i think the state of the union is always an important moment in a presidency, not just another case for the people sitting in the room but the country of the tough choices we have to make and i think hell make it. Nicolle, a cautionary tale on the state of the union. I think that he made the proposal to reform Social Security without having his own party on board. Thats a lesson for any president , but i think president obama did the Republican Party a huge favor by delivering an inaugural address that was historically combative. He did not deliver the kind of inaugural address people are accustomed to in recent history. Instead he came out in a really spirited way, i wouldnt call them fighting words, but spirited defense of an aggressive progressive agenda. Im told by staffers from marco rubios office that he had a certain kind of response to the state of the union in mind, he tore it up and started again. Republicans now are ready to i think go toe to toe with a very spirited president who i think is ready to advance a progressive agenda. I think this will help republicans really, you know, match spirit with spirit and make a conservative case. You know, marco rubios response, you know, the expectation for some of this, a chance for him to showcase his immigration plan but im told rubios response touches very little on immigration. This will be a very confrontational speech taking on the president. It will touch on immigration but it is not immigration speech. The same things that you describe there, hell talk about the middle class and talk about same things you talked about how to bring opportunity to every corner of the country so i think it will be a battle of ideas. Which is great and what it should be. I just want to take one note on the inaugural address. You know, it has been described as a speech with a list of progressive ideas, but if you actually look at what the president talked about, thats not progressive, thats actually the center of the country right now, whether its gay marriage or climate change. Immigration, youve seen how far weve been able to move the immigration debate. Thats where the country is, and i think as republicans are trying to remake themselves and points, they need to realize where the country is. Where the country is but one thing weve seen in those issues like guns and immigration, climate change, very low on peoples priorities now, economy front and center. Thats what the president is going to be focused on. You all mentioned the sequester that is coming up, as well. I want to dig into that a little bit. It seemed like when the sequester was proposed back in 2011, it was proposed because no one wanted or expected it to happen. Take a look. The whole idea of the sequester was to make sure that both sides felt obligated to move off rigid positions. The sequester is ugly, it was designed to be ugly because we didnt want anybody to go there. The very idea of those automatic cuts is that they are so unacceptable, that few of us will want to see them enacted, and most of us will be willing to compromise in order to avoid them. What a difference a year makes. Congressman cole, its gone from irresponsible to what seems like inevitable. I think it is inevitable, quite frankly. But for the president this was a president ial suggestion back in 2011, an idea and yet the president himself hasnt put out any alternative. Republicans twice in the house have passed legislation to deal with it, once as early as last may, again, after the election in december and the senate never picked up either bill, never offered their own thing. Now were at three weeks out and folks are worried. They ought to be worried. On the other hand, these cuts are going to occur. Now, the real choice here is simply do you want cuts to be redistributed in other ways, which is the sensible thing to do or do you want to let this happen . I think republicans are quite prepared to negotiate on redistributing cuts. Youre saying all cuts. Republicans are look, absolutely none. The president accepted no spending cuts back in the fiscal cliff deal 45 days ago. So you get all no spending cuts back then. Then youre going to get no revenue now. Well, tom, the problem with saying this is the president s idea is that you voted for the budget control act. I voted against it. We wouldnt have ever been talking about the budget control act but for your party refused to negotiate on the debt ceiling something that has been routinely increased as the country needed it. You use that occasion that is not the case. You used that occasion in 2011, august to basically say, we are going to let were going to default on the countrys obligation or youll give us dramatic spending cuts. Thats how we got to the budget control ago. Let me tell you, the bottom line is this sequester will put a Million People out of work, no, 600,000, excuse me, got to get my numbers right, 600,000 people out of work, and this is going to increase unemployment, its going to increase the deficit because people paying taxes means that were lowering the deficit. Its going to do its going to do everything opposite to what your party says that they want. Its going to create uncertainty, its going to increase the deficit. Its going to increase unemployment. Thats why we put out proposals to deal with its going to be a problem. Deal with the key we dont have a president ial proposal. We dont even have a proposal from the president. You got a proposal from the caucus. Let me tell you about the ballots again. I dont think you speak for the president , so lets see. Jon karl, take that up, the question. President has given a couple of speeches where he wants a balanced approach, but no linebyline proposal on the table right now. Yeah, and theres been internal debate in the white house on this. I got to tell you at the white house they seem like there will be eventually will be a compromise to avert the cuts. Not before not before march 1st. The pressure comes, negative consequences, i see zero chance of a deal on this. I dont see any chance and republicans did a great job of saying this was the president s idea, they appointed bob and clear the president s idea, but i talked to republicans and not just the radical house guys but prominent republican senator this week told me that he loves the sequester because its actually real cuts. I want to bring that to nicolle wallace. I think thats a widespread sentiment. On the other hand, hear from the white house and democratic operatives that may say thats all well and good but republicans will get blamed. The country is pretty strongly in support of big cuts, of bloated federal government and i think if you take it to the whole country, that would include the defense budget. I think that no one is interested in cutting anything that would impede our military readiness. No one wants to take anything at all from any of our troops on the front lines but to say that in the entire pentagon budget there isnt an iota of room for cuts like this for meaningful cuts would be lying. This is significant. You have republicans saying the pentagon budget can be cut without jeopardizing National Security. Not all of them. You have people like john mccain describe the fall but a lot of republicans, privately and publicly, saying that there is room to cut the as long as you dont as long as you hold harmless with everything that deals with troop readiness, that deals with troops on the front lines and military families but theres plenty of room in the procurement budgets, theres plenty of room for reforms and for i want to come to that in a second, but the problem will be, i think for the white house, broadly and for the country is the point that congressman ellison makes, you hit the sequester right now, that is goign to have a real Economic Impact right away. Absolutely, absolutely, and i think youll hear the president most likely talk about that on tuesday night, tuesday night. We cant have any more selfinflicted wounds on the economy. The economy is poised to take off. If we do the right things. Having massive acrosstheboard cuts to some critical programs i mean youre talking about education, health care, that things that actually we need, cops, to make this the economy grow. A couple of things, one, the president does have a plan on the table, fortunately deficit Reduction Plan thats been on the table for almost two years, balanced deficit reduction and cut 2 trillion out of the budget, balanced revenue and entitlement reform. Thats on the table, its been on the table. Number two, where the country is, like, the country believes we need to do something about deficit reform. If you look at the exit polls from the last election, upwards of 60 people coming out voting for the president , voting generally. Things that we need to reduce our deficit and in a balanced way. Balanced means everybody pays their fair share. That includes revenue and right now its 31 in terms of cuts that its not exactly where the republicans were six weeks ago, taxes were going up by law. The only question were you going to negotiate a good package, save as many bush tax cuts as you could. We eventually got there with no cuts from the president. Now these cuts are coming by law and its law that the president signed and advocated, and hes put no real proposal on the table with all due respect, and the reality is the cuts are going to come. Now, well sit down and renegotiate where theyre going to come from. We think we can do a lot better job can we just mechanism meant to be an enforcement mechanicism. The fiscal cliff on new years day, youd have highincome people who already have a lot of Discretionary Income seeing taxes go up. Thats not going to hurt the economy. This thing is going to put 600,000 people out of work talking cops, were talking teachers, pink slips will be going out. Were calling that [ all talking at once ] this is why we need to negotiate this thing and not just say its going to be sequester or our way. We actually passed come on. Legislation how many did you not many. Remember why we did this in the first place. We did this not because we wanted the cuts to go in place. Nobody wanted these cuts to go in place. This was an enforcement mechanism for congress to come together, finally come together to pass deficit reform, deficit reduction. These acrosstheboard cuts is not going to get us there because its going to strangle our economy, slow growth which will increase the deficit and the choices that people are making here are acrosstheboard cuts, which could be 10,000 teachers or asking Oil Companies to pay their fair share. Thats what the victims of the sequester, its so funny to hear democrats cry about the sequester. Democrats control the executive branch, they control the senate and theyre in a position to negotiate with republicans who have put out two packages of alternative cuts so take those well in the senate in response. Thats not take it or leave it. Thats like the process. They havent been able to pass anything, the president hasnt proposed anything with three weeks away. We acted in may of last year. We acted again in december. Senator reid is not saying he will pass a budget out of the senate this year. But i want to bring this back to jon karl because when you look at the sequester coming in on march 1st, it seems like even the bigger hammer is 3 1 2 weeks later march 27th, the entire government runs out of money. The last time they shut down was 1995 and did backfire on the house republicans. Yeah, we faced a Government Shutdown and not long after that had to deal with the debt ceiling yet again, so it seems to me the real battle like i said, theres zero chance the sequester deal will happen before march 1st. Those automatic spending cuts will go in effect and you will start seeing notices on furloughing employees and be on notice they may be furloughed but the real battle over the funding of the government and a chance for those automatic cuts to be rejiggered. One of the things youre seeing right now, and this is against the backdrop of the Republican Party coming out of the last election talking about where theyll go in the future and how theyll be seen by the public and you guys mentioned marco rubio on the cover of Time Magazine called right there the republican savior put out a tweet saying theres only one savior here, and its not me and a lot of pressure on marco rubio. Youve seen several coming out with speeches where the party should be. Weve got to stop being the stupid party. Im serious. Time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. I would argue that a more restrained Foreign Policy is the true conservative Foreign Policy. The average american is not thinking about and trying to wonder about where the Republican Party is. Theyre thinking about how to make their life work. Your leader in the house right there, eric cantor, where is this debate headed . I think its a good debate for the Republican Party to have. When you lose an election, you ought to be a little bit reflective and ought to think back and ought to begin to say, what do we need to do differently . We didnt do badly in the election, but the president won with less than he was elected in 08, lower popular vote, lower electoral vote. We held the house, we have 30 governors. The idea this is some existential crisis is overdone, i think, but we didnt win so what do we need differently. I like what were hearing and like the direct line that Governor Jindal took because i think we have we cant be too yeah, we nearly were in the fiscal cliff and could have triggered a big tax increase. I dont want to be stupid but you also need to be principled and consistent in your values and i think we are. And, you know, well see what happens in the next year or two. And marco rubio does seem to be rising to the top of the heap. Yeah, look, hes everything we need and more, hes modern. He knows who tupac is. He is on social media. Hes part of the sort of he has all the blessings of the old political establishment. Hes close to the younger bushes. He and jeb bush and george p. Bush create what i call that axis of enlightenment when it comes to immigration. I mean, hes got the policy. Hes in touch with i think the lives of ordinary people and hes a very accessible guy. He talks about being a working dad and juggling his own priorities. Youre shaking your head on tupac. You know, i think all of this stuff is just surface stuff. Its like lipstick on a pig. The bottom line is the republicans have a core values problem, not who knows who tupac shakur is. Let me just say, i dont want to gloss over his credentials and i think when it comes to Immigration Reform, president obama has stolen from rubio. Rubio has a piecemeal approach to the immigration stuff. I mean president obama took pieces of that piecemeal approach. Well, bottom line is, i think where the country is, we want more aggressive, more direct reform on Immigration Reform than marco rubio is talking about. I think hes behind. I think hes fragmented on the issue, and i think that, you know, the republicans are looking for anybody not just we are in the fifth year waiting for the obama immigration plan. It was supposed to be unveiled within 100 days after his election in 2008, so the president has prettily skillfully used the issue but hasnt led on the issue. Were still waiting for a bill. Now, rubio is leading with some risk to himself which i admire. Look, i think well get there but the real leadership on immigration isnt coming out of the administration but the senate. The president put out an immigration plan in the first term. I was there, i helped work on it. Obviously it was an issue in this past election. Republicans have come a long way, even compared to where we were just six months ago, now theyre talking about being for the d. R. E. A. M. Act and now marco rubio is talked about earned citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Thats a big step forward for republicans. I hope he can bring the rest of the party along and i think that youre seeing a lot of movement on the republican side on immigration for very basic reasons. The change in demographics in elections, and thats fine. Im glad theyre coming i dont care why theyre coming. Theyre just coming towards the president on immigration and hopefully we can get something done. I want to get to one more issue before we take a break. Another potential 2016 contender for the white house, Chris Christie of new jersey. He started out the week opening up about his weight on David Letterman making jokes about it. A former white house doctor took issue and said she was worried about his health, connie mariano, and then he gave this press conference. This is just another hack that wants five minutes on tv. If she wants to get on a plane and come to new jersey and ask if she wants to examine me and review my medical history. Ill have a conversation with her at that time. Until that time she should shut up. We called her and had a fairly heated conversation, a republican not voting for him. Were laughing about it but Chris Christie talking about this for a very good reason. This will be a serious issue if he decides to run for president. It is, but ive got to make two points here. This reminds you of what lincoln supposedly said about grant and grants drinking problem. You know, christie is the most popular republican in the land. You almost want to say, find out what kind of doughnuts he likes and then ship him a case of them because the guy is doing just fine. Give him a break, but i will say this, if he seriously takes on the issue of his own health and weight, remember, Mike Huckabee first became a National Figure of arkansas when he dealt with his own weight, lost 100 pounds, and if he kind of turns this into a National Version of the biggest loser a political version of the biggest loser christie can gather more support. So Many Americans relate to what he is dealing with. So many of us are overweight. A lot agree with him in that press conference right there. But if youre going to run for president , my advice is for him to stop telling people to shut up. [ laughter ] he says from new jersey so thats new jersey for, you know, give me a minute. But i think if he puts his weight on the table by bringing a doughnut on letterman which was a very skillful political move, turning your own vulnerability into something you make fun of before anyone else does is political genius but then it didnt take him 24 hours to reveal a rather thinskinned side. We do have to take a break. A lot more roundtable. Debate over drones and president obama under pressure from left and right. Plus, New York Times author wrote the best book youll read this year and George Saunders is in our spotlight. That retiring some day is even an option for sean and me. Howd you get comfortable enough to know you could really do it . Well, planning, of course. And we got a lot of good advice. A few years ago, your mom and i put some money into a pacific life fixed annuity. It guarantees us an income for the rest of our lives, whether Social Security is all there or not. Hey, hey [ laughs ] [ male announcer ] to learn more about a guaranteed Lifetime Income from pacific life, visit pacificlife. Com. The world needs more energy. Wheres it going to come from . Thats why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. Enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. Whats it going to do to the planet . Natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. Weve got to be smart about this. Its a smart way to go. More roundtable coming up. But first stephen colbert, his sister is running for congress. Its for real. Quick advice for any of you republicans out there who might end up with a debate with my big sister. This is how i used to win a lot of arguements with her when i was a kid. Right after she maybes a good point, repeat it back to her in a dumb voice like this. Ooh, Social Security is a public trust to those who paid into it for their entire working lives. Ooh, stop, stop copying me, stephen, im telling mom. [ laughter ] trust me, it works. Hter ] trust me, it works. But there are some things ive never seen before. This ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. Which is good for business. Because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. Suddenly, faraway places dont seem so. Far away. A talking car. But ill tell you what impresses me. A talking train. This ge locomotive can tell you exactly where it is, what its carrying, while using less fuel. Delivering whatever the world needs, when it needs it. After all, whats the point of talking if you dont have something important to say . Your view seems to be th at even if we could save american lives by detaining more terrorist, it would be better to kill them with a drone or let them go free rather than detain them. I respectfully disagree, senator. I never believe its better to kill a terrorist than to detain him. How many highvalue targets have been arrested and detained and interrogated by the United States during your four years with the administration . Ill be happy to get that information to you, senator. I submit to you the answer to that is one. President obamas take for cia director john brennan faced some tough questions this week on the drone war. Lets talk about that on the roundtable. Abc Foreign Affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz replacing jon karl because you spent so much time on the issue, and the drone war has become kind of the signature characteristic on the war on terror. Dramatic expansion over the last four years, but this is the most scrutiny its got. Thats certainly because of the testimony of john brennan and what he brought to the hill, what he talked about, which, frankly, wasnt very much. The drone wars have not been discussed for four or five years. No one talks about them. Its a brilliant strategy. If you dont talk about it, no one else will talk about them either. I just returned from the mideast, i was in israel, i was in northern israel. A lot of people are talking about drones. A lot of people are talking about the effects of drones, george. As you know, ive been in all the places theyre used, in yemen, in pakistan, and people there do not like them. John brennan is able to say, look, its very effective and its certainly been effective taking out core leadership, but when you talk to people on the street, you wonder what the longterm strategy is. Well, but let me press you on that, but youre right, there has been a lot of discomfort on the ground with these drone strikes. On the other hand, it does appear the number of civilian casualties has been going down since 2008, and certainly there are less casualties than caused by massive bombings. I think one of the things is that, yes, i think they become much more careful. I think john brennan is probably very careful. No one wants to kill civilians and yet the American Public doesnt really know much about this. I interviewed Stan Mcchrystal a few weeks ago, the former head of the joint Operations Command who ran a drone strike program. What general mcchrystal said is, look, what concerns him is theyre now going after midlevel al qaeda and midlevel taliban. Where does that stop and who makes the decision that something is imminent . Congressman ellison, youve been on this for some time. You want much more oversight from the congress. Thats right. I looked into this. I havent found one public hearing on drones. Now, we had the brennan hearings but congress has the oversight responsibility here, and, by the way, the president has invited the conversation and said we need a legal architecture around this thing so why not do it. I dont think this is a partisan issue at all. I think we need to get a hold of this technology because other countries will be weaponizing drones. Certainly we will probably have objections to how they use them if they dont use them in accordance to due process and international standards. And, by the way, the paper that the president well, the administration released uses the term imminent threat. And who decides that, right . Well, this is the broadest use of the term imminent ive ever. Al qaeda. If youre a member of al qaeda not even that, if youre in affiliated group. It can be pretty attenuated. Im glad the president invited the conversation. I think we ought to take him up on it. Congressman, as he said, somewhat bipartisan. A lot of republicans also first, let me say the guy has the material in his pocket. In yellow. The policy that started under president bush continued and expanded under president obama. I, like everybody else, i actually think the hearings and discussion have been very helpful. There probably needs to be more of it. The two things that come out of it that concern me the most, frankly, i think and its not a criticism of the president , i think hes probably been more directly involved in some of the targeting decisions than if i were his adviser, i would think would be wise. I think he should supervise, the Program Needs to be intimately familiar. I think hes taking on too much risk for himself, quite frankly. But, again, that actually says good things about the president , not bad things. The second thing is, and this is to senator chambliss point. I think were losing a lot of opportunities to actually extract people and get information and human intelligence is really much more important than taking out individual targets. And, nicolle, one of the ironies a lot of people have sensed even is that even though president bush obama may have modified Bush Administration policies, hes also continuing them. Yeah, its slightly hilarious people have all this patience for legal architecture to be crafted after the fact. If this is in president george w. Bushs admission that there were that many drone attacks going on, there would be impeachment hearings going under way and hypocrisy and the actual policy and the fact that president obama has continued almost the entire basket is in the case of drone killings greatly accelerated their use has republicans feeling pretty satisfied that the counterterrorism policies put in place by the Bush Administration, which dick cheney was the architect of many of them, have been continued as president and the interesting other side of the coin to this extremely progressive president on domestic policy. And, stephanie, it does seem as if the president is uncomfortable at least we of the criticism hes not being as transparent as he promised to be. Look, this is sensitive information. There is oversight through the intelligence committee, which is the way the law is currently set up. He has made it clear that hes open for a discussion how these programs are handled in the future. You know, the document that youre holding up is based on a legal architecture, but but, you know, mr. Brennan, the president , the administration has said that they want transparency, accountability and a process to ensure that theres, you know, everybody is aware of what were doing going forward. There are elements of the president bushs war on terror that havent been continued, many forms of torture, and, you know, the fact that the president just put this memo out after it became known and, you know, he wants to work with congress and be open another revelation this week in the Foreign Policy area, pretty remarkable hearing, secretary of defense outgoing secretary of defense leon panetta conceding that there had been a real internal debate and that most of the president S National Security advisers wanted to arm the rebels in syria. Did you support the recommendation by then secretary of state clinton and then head of cia general petraeus that we provide weapons to the resistance in syria . Did you support that . We did. You did support that . We did. You were in that region this week, Martha Raddatz. It was pretty surprising to learn not only secretary panetta but secretary of state clinton had pushed for this. The president said no. And the chairman of the joint chief of staffs. I think that came as a surprise to those in the region, and i talked to a lot of officials in the region about this. I dont think theyre convinced that if the rebels were armed this would have changed much. A lot of the people i talked to said, look, we didnt know who they were then and there was actually some disagreement the rebels. Military the rebels. We just dont know who they are. We admit we shouldnt have been giving them guns, people i talked to and, yet, when you think about it, the United States really could have had someone to deal with in there and thats probably the argument that panetta would make, that general dempsey would make, that Hillary Clinton would make, you had somebody there. Well, let me tell you, you got nearly 800,000 displaced people according to the un, you got more than 60,000 people dead. If you talk to syria and americans, you have maybe many, many more than that. Weve got to do something. I am even hearing reports that were not even coming up to the plate on humanitarian assistance. I mean and youve got chemical weapons which thats a complicated seriously complicating factor, but i just think that, you know, weve got to do more than were doing. Now, you know, armed rebels are not this is a factbased issue. I think this we can be doing a whole lot more, and id like to see it. Senator mccain was saying that, as well. You know, i want to give the president some support here actually. This is real president ial leadership. When you turn, you know, away from the advice of your very top leaders, thats a president ial level decision. He deserves a lot of respect and its a tough call either way. On the arms issue, i am very uncomfortable. I actually agree with the president. We dont know enough to be interjecting arms. Theres plenty of people sending arms. The rebels havent been short of arms. So i dont know that we need to take the lead. On the other hand i agree very much with what keith said. We need to be on the ground with humanitarian aid and need to have political intelligence. We can provide a lot of communications and logistics, that kind of stuff that keeps us in the game but arming people who may be the very ones that take the chemical weapons and misuse them, that would have been a disaster for us too, so i think the president has been, frankly, appropriately cautious. Stephanie, how would you respond to people who say this was interesting timing, that the president chose to say no to his entire National Security team right in the middle of a campaign. Just didnt want that trouble in the middle of a campaign. Well, look, george, i think there are decisions made with the National Security team all the time. Sometimes the president agrees with the National Security adviser. Sometimes he doesnt. Thats why the president has built the team that he has. And, you know, i only know about this from what i read. Im not inside the white house anymore. And my understanding is that panetta and others didnt push for it because of the risk involved that the congressman just laid out and because these arms could end up in the hands of al qaeda or they could be used against israel. So this is this is why administrations are set up. This is why National Security teams have been built. This is why the president wanted such strong personalities and expertise on the National Security team. Doesnt always agree with them but he gets their best advice and then he makes the decision. Hes the commander in chief. Just two quick political points. I mean, if you look at where president obamas Foreign Policy is likely to crack wide open among partisan lines, this is it. You will see senators mccain, i think, and graham and others start to string together instances of america leading from behind and of this president s comfort in doing so in places like libya and now in syria, and i think this will become the most Political Part of the president s scrambling with party lines over here. But i think this is where hes opening himself up to criticism of what was a historically strong america, a strong role for america in the world is being deteriorated by decisions like this and the terror policies are pretty much in line with what bush and cheney advocated. Its his Foreign Policy in this very complicated, very fragile region and, again, youre going to see people parting with their own party but senators mccain and graham and chambliss in a place thats changing rapidly, the United States needs to be seen on the side of people who are fighting for liberation, for democracy and, by the way, is the world really going to miss Bashar Al Assad . No. Its be great if he was gone and and he will go. Something has to happen this year. I mean thats the sense i got over there. Something has to happen. Either he is gone, or its fragmented completely. People are so nervous over there in that region. I traveled to northern israel and the iron dome, which is the missile intercept that theyre so nervous that syria or lebanon, more likely lebanon, hezbollah will start launching missiles toward israel they have these intercepters set up all over the northern border and those chemical weapons, if i can just say, those chemicals weapons i was told are all now consolidated in certain areas, they believe it was assad and the syrian regem that helped if israel knows where they are, should we expect another strike from israel . I think you very well will see another strike. If they do anything with those weapons, they said its easier to take them ow. Its easier than to take people into safeguard. Remember, we were involved in libya and weapons got out of libya and dealing with them in mali and other places now. At least those werent american weapons, but we helped stabilize we ought to be pretty careful here. I couldnt agree more with you about assad, but again i dont sense there is a lack of weapons in the region and the rebels seem pretty well armed. Well, again, we agree on that. Yeah. But here be careful and there are times when you do break with your advisers, frankly, president bush broke on surge with all his advisers and i think he was right to do that the president here is running risks. Now, the Political Risk is he owns it. I mean you cant point to anybody else. I made this decision above people. That speaks relatively about to own, again, middle east policy more broadly, the president announced this week that hes going to go to israel in march. You were here when the announcement came. What was the reaction and what is the trip really about . Were hearing from the white house they dont expect this to be the sign the president will have a new peace plan on the table. It seems like its largely about mending fences with mr. Netanyahu. I think it probably is more about mending fences. In fact, ive never seen more expectations. As soon as he announced, its like nothing is really going to happen. Were never going to get there. If you talk to people on the street, and theres some people i have known there for 25 years who say, you know, nothing will happen, never ever has and usually you get a little bit of a spark, oh, the president is coming. Isnt that great . People are talking the president is coming. What do you think, oh, the traffic is going to be terrible. You were kidding. Thats where the expectations are on that, but i do think he needs to mend some fences with netanyahu. Its time that the president engaged over there. And in part because, you know, we still have this issue, congressman ellison, of the coming confrontation with iran. You got two different messages from the iranian leaders this week, the Supreme Leader says no direct talks. President ahmadinejad today maybe said we might be open to it. But you see on that score, the president cant be criticized for not being in support of trying to make sure that iran doesnt get a nuclear weapon. What i hope happens is that the president raises issues around stimulus expansion. Im very concerned about yeah. I mean, the bottom line is after the u. N. Vote where the u. N. Voted 1389 to recognize palestines estate, there was housing settlements announced the next day, which was disappointing to me in areas that were thought to be part of the palestinian state so i hope after the president leaves this time, that theres no such announcement and nothing embarrassing happens. I would be surprised if the president made a huge issue of that. Look, i think that theyre viewing this trip as, you know, its our most important ally in the region. The president hasnt been there yet. Its an important trip. Its an important way for him to engage directly with the israeli people, first and foremost. So i think thats through the lens through which theyre looking at this trip, whether expectations are low on the ground. Expectations, keeping them low is always a good thing. Should be in place by then. Secretary kerry started this week. Secretary of state kerry. Senator hagel still waiting for his confirmation up in the senate and i was struck last night talking about dick cheney earlier. Dick cheney giving a speech in wyoming who really took off on the president. He said the performance now of barack obama as he staffs up the National Security team for the second term is dismal. Frankly, what he has appointed are secondrate people, hagel was chosen because obama wants to have a republican that he can use to take the heat for what he plans to do to the department of defense. There is an unbowed dick cheney. Well, listen, senator hagel didnt do his new boss, president obama, any favors by looking befuddled and confused and clueless as to what the department of defense does, an agency hes up to now run, so i dont think senator hagel did himself any favors for the president. When you look at how republicans have sort of stood back and i think given the president a lot of running room in Foreign Policy it was because of the belief that secretary clinton, secretary gates were incredibly competent and incredibly reasonable and really quite measured in their Foreign Policy world view. Thats trepidation, the coalition of senator kerry, senator hagel and a sort of renewed former senator biden are going to have a much more leftleaning Foreign Policy. Senator kerry approved overwhelmingly, but speak to this issue of senator hagel right now. The white house was not trying to defend his performance before the committee but theyre still confident hes going to get confirmed. And i love that Stephanie Cutter has to do that on senator hagel and jay carney who was a white house a correspondent during the bush years covering senator hagel. It makes she so happy. This is my karma. Whats yours . I love. [ all talking at once ] [ laughter ] look, first of all, let me address dick cheney. I think the worst thing that we could do right now is take dick cheneys advice on Foreign Policy. Thats number one. Number two, john kerry comes to this job with so much experience. Life experience, both on the job as the chair of the Foreign Relations committee, he has been an ambassador all over this world on behalf of president obama bringing, you know, conflicts on the ground to an end and representing this country in a strong way, a balanced way and a diplomatic way, and i think that, you know, his becoming secretary of state is a sign of strength for this administration and and being celebrated all over the world. Senator hagel . Senator hagel. Sorry. No, no, previous on his performance, you know, and committee hearing, which will have nothing to do with how he performs his job as secretary of defense. He also comes to this position with significant experience, both as an enlisted man, as a senator and has strong support across the board in being able to do this job including from republicans. You know, what happened that day in the hearing, putting aside his performance, there was a lot of grudges being settled. A lot of personal conflicts being worked out. It had very little to do with current Foreign Policy. For gods sake, afghanistan was barely even mentioned. It was all about the surge in iraq. That is dealing with old wounds and not something that we need stephanie has to come back and be hagels communication thank you, but, no. Obama administration, gates, hagel, lahood. Were trying to do the right thing were out of time. Anybody think hes not going to get confirmed . Hes going to get confirmed absolutely. Great roundtable. Stephanie will stick around and answer your facebook questions on the web exclusive and George Saunders getting attention over his new book tenth of december. He joins us next. Tdd 18003452550 seems like etfs are everywhere these days. Tdd 18003452550 but there is one source with a wealth of etf knowledge tdd 18003452550 all in one place. Tdd 18003452550 introducing schwab etf onesource™. Tdd 18003452550 its one source with the most commissionfree etfs. 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George saunders coming uin George Saunders coming up in the sunday spotlight. The sunday funnies. The u. S. Postal service made a big announcement today. For the past few years theyve been losing billions of dollars so to cut costs starting in august they will no longer deliver mail on saturdays. Audience ah. Really . They will still deliver packages on saturday, just not regular mail, which means well only get the bed, bath, beyond coupon on monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and fridays now. A Justice Department memo claims that president obama has the right to order the assassination of an american anywhere in the world. Isnt that crazy . In a related story, donald trump has gone into hiding. The Federal Reserve was hacked on sunday. Pretty serious. In fact, theyre saying the hackers could have made off with as much as negative 14 trillion. We dont have anything. All stations come over to mission a for a final go. This is for real this time. Step seven point two one two. Verify and lock. Command is locked. Five seconds. Three, two, one. Standing by for capture. The most Innovative Software on the planet. Dragon is captured. Is connecting todays leading companies to places beyond it. Siemens. Answers. Robin roberts is coming back to the show. Oh, my god. Welcome back, girlfriend. Hi, robin. Hi, robin. Welcome back. Yes she looks so good welcome back, robin. Welcome back, robin. Robin, i love you, god bless you. We have missed you. We love you. We love you. Hey, robin. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back, robin. We cannot wait for that wednesday, february 20th. Excuse me. Robin will be back. We are counting the days and right now we have the sunday spotlight shining on George Saunders. Short story collection, never made the bestsellers list but did with tenth of december. The New York Times hailed him as the writer for our time and buzzy feature saying he wrote the best book youll read this year. Its the best fiction ive read this year. Real pleasure to welcome you to this week. You must be loving it. I think when i was younger, i might have gotten a little neurotic, but im having a great time. You earned it. The book is really remarkable. So rich in so many ways. Funny and dark, realistic and absurd at the same time. But what i want to focus on for just these few minutes is that we talk about all the time here on this week, you really seem to tap into this economic anxiety that so Many Americans are feeling right now. Yeah, yeah, well, i mean, it seems like thats the big american subject. You can talk about race, you can talk about sex, about your biopsy but when you get about class, people kind of clench up and in my 20s i had a series of that kind of classic American Experience where you are kind of going down and think thats enough, now im going to turn myself around and then you go down a little more. That had a tenderizing effect. When you started that experience, you were an ayn rand guy. I went to a school in colorado and kind of a dullwitted vaguely right wing kind of person that didnt know much about politics and then i went to asia and the oil business, and that opened up my eyes to suffering and the fact that wealth doesnt necessarily indicate that you are virtuous. Its just sort of a block. So one of the things you write about, the phrase you said, the absence of wealth creates an erosion of grace. Right, capitalism thunders the sensuality of the body. Fiction isnt actually a great propaganda. Often the first impulse of a writer is kind of to pull up the big manure shock of his ideas and just sort of span their reader and dump it. But i find if you just concentrate on language and on making sort of liveliness of situations, then ideas and sort of they come out of the woodwork. Thats what i wanted to ask. If you set out to write overtly political fiction, it wouldnt work. It never and i tried. It doesnt work. Theres something about the intimacy of the exchange demands openness on both sides, and on the writers part opens, which means i really dont know. I might think i know, but i dont. Its weird because the way to get to those ideas is through the language. Paying attention. Close attention to phrases and sentences, and if you do that in kind of an open state, not only will the ideas show up, but theyll be the highest form of your ideas. They wont be superficial but deep and sort of ambiguous. Seems like one of the things you try to create for in those sentences is space for heart. Thats another way of reaching across our divide. Thats right. Thats right. I long that longfellow quote which ill probably mangle but if we could look into the secret history of our enemies, we would find sufficient suffering and sorrow to disarm our hostility, and i think fiction is kind of almost like a mechanical way to work through your own shallowness. You start off with a kind of a couldnt condescending relationship to your character almost by deaf significance, and then the work with the sentences, you find that the bad sentences are equal to oversome that con desenccondesencion and work with language you move towards complexity and often to a state of confusion where you really dont know what you think about the person. You may not but when you send it out in the world when do you hope to get back . Really i think the highest version is youre sending out a bundle of energy, you know, concentrated energy that you made with your long sweat really and your heart and it goes out and it jangles somebody. Theres the highest form. Now, theres another level where you do hope to make people more alive in the world. Maybe more aware of the fact that theres we have more in common with others than we think we do. Thats kind of the hope but even that gets a little bit intentional. For me its just trying to deliver an Energy Charge in a certain way. You did it for me and youve done it for so many more, the book is called tenth of december. Thank you so much, George Saunders. To read an excerpt, go to abcnews. Com thisweek. Good news. This is the place in our program where we honor the sacrifices of our Service Members killed in action. But for the second week in a row, the pentagon released no names of soldiers killed in afghanistan. That is all for us today. Thanks for sharing part of your sunday with us. Check out world news with david muir, and check us out tuesday night when diane sawyer and i will have complete coverage of the state of the union on tuesday night. Ill see you tomorrow on gma. In the news, new video and information on the cop criminaller, christopher dorner. And the huge disaster trial happening right now in the east bay. We will have a live report with the details. Good morning. From mt. Tam, certainly chilly still in our valleys. Upper elevations, though, upper 40s. Ill let you know how an offshore flow will influence our temperatures this weekend and the week ahead good morning. Thanks nor joining us. Im carolyn tyler. Lets start with a quick first look at the weather with meteorologist lisa argen. Heres a look from vollmer peak across the east bay. You will notice it is nice and
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