Peoples homes and work places and potentially killing civilians. We will continue to support israels right to defend itself. Chief White House Correspondent chuck todd is traveling with the president. Good sunday to you. What else do we hear from the president on israel and otherwise . A couple of things on israel, he made a plea to allies of the palestinians in particular. The president of egypt, the Prime Minister of turkey said if you would like to see a twostate solution in the near future, a palestinian state next to israel this has to deescalate now. The president expressing this fear if hamas doesnt stop rocket attacks on to israels soille he fears left unsaid is israel may retaliate and turn in to a ground war and then the idea of a twostate solution in the Peace Process will be in the way distant future. Obviously the middle east Peace Process has been on hold for quite sometime. He was asked about this trip will include a visit to myanmar which is also known as burma. He was asked whether it was too soon. A lot of Human Rights Violations taken in burma and he wouldnt have gone if Aung San Suu Kyi didnt think it was right for him to go. A few notes to point out. One is during before the press conference he and secretary clinton were visiting a mondastermonastery. They were joking about getting prayers over the fiscal cliff. The president at the press conference was asked what about what kind of prayer he asked for. Take a listen. I always believe in prayer. I believe in prayer when i go to church, back home. And if a Buddhist Monk is wishing me well, im going to take whatever good vibes he can give me to try to deal with some challenges back home. Im confident we can get our fiscal situation dealt. A little bit of you could tell he has a lot on his mind during this trip, between israel, gaza, the fiscal cliff negotiations which pick up right after thanksgiving and oh, by the way, he is here to do two historical firsts, first time a u. S. President will visit cambodia an myanmar. I have been thinking of the multiple ways as he has to focus on so many things at once but he is doing it. Thank you so much. The fifth day in the middle east crisis and a potential tipping point. They are waiting for a potential cease fire or Ground Invasion. The striels flared today. One rocket toward tel aviv. Hamas rocketed and struck a home in the town. And strikes from the land, sea and sky. The latest attack killed at least 12 civilians and a bomb struck two media buildings in gaza. They struck a refugee camp. Medical Officials Say three children were killed. Netanyahu says israel is preparing for a quote significant expansion of the operation. Ban ki moon is preparing for a trip to egypt as discussions are underway for a truce. Delegations will arrive in gaza on tuesday. Lets get to the scene on the ground. Stephanie is live in tel aviv. I understand some sirens were just going off where you are. What have you heard . What would that indicate . Reporter this is the second time today we have heard sirens in tel aviv. Two rockets were launched in the capital city and when they were launched the iron dome, that is israelis protective Missile System they have in place that was launched, as well and they intercepted both rockets. Thats what happened earlier in the day. This is something that people in this city are beginning to get used to five days in to this conflict. What about the status of the ceasefire negotiations . What do you know about that, stephanie. We know they are ongoing. Israeli radio is saying an envoy was sent to cairo today. That person will meet up with envoys from the palestinian side, as well as representatives from qatar and egypt that will work on negotiating a cease fire. Today you had Prime Minister netanyahu say as long as the rockets are landing in israel there will be no cease fire. His defense minister ehud barak said he expects the possibility of this conflict widening. Thats a suggestion there could be some Ground Invasion in gaza at the very least. As you know, there are troops amassing in in the south of israel preparing for that Ground Invasion. Although so far it seems like talks are ongoing ander in a period of trying to figure out if they can maintain a cease fire so the troops dont have to go in. It is a tense time is an under statement there. How long will these talks go underway . Do you know . Is there an outside that israel has indicated they will allow for them to try to negotiate and bargain before they may do military action . Well, we did hear from the foreign minister in israel who said they are open to all possibility cease fire options. So they certainly, at least, are giving indications they are willing to talk. You have an incident today in gaza, an attack from israel that levelled a residential building killing at least 12 people. Thats a deadly, deadly attack and will certainly inflame tensions on the ground and in gaza and theres concern some rocket taeng attacks coming to israel could be more deadly. Anything could push it over the tipping point. Thank you. Lets go to front page politics now. New, explosive reaction following David Petraeus closed door testimony to the house and Intelligence Committees. This on the benghazi attack. Do you believe the president or anybody serving the president deliberately misled the American People about the true nature of this attack for political reasons . No. Absolutely not, senator. Thats correct. This whole process is going to be checked out. We are going to find out who made changes in the original statement until we do, i really think its unwarranted to make accusations. Why would you choose someone who had nothing to do with benghazi to tell us about benghazi . Thats kind of odd. Why pick on her. She didnt know anything about benghazi. She was the most political person they could find. I dont know what she knew but i know the story she told is misleading. I dont know why it was misleading but let me put this in context. Would this white house mislead the American People about National Security events . I think they might because when the bin laden raid occurred they leaked every detail about the raid. Joining me for more is the Political Writer for the New York Times john har wood and Washington Post amy gardner. Thank you for being here. Appreciate that. You heard senator graham essentially accusing the administration of misleading on the nature of the benghazi attack. Whats your attack . My attack take is that benghazi has become the channel through which republicans remaining unhappiness about the election outcome is being focused. Look, it was catastrophic tragedy. But we have an explanation from petraeus for why susan rice said what she said. That is to say they deliberately obscured what they knew in order to avoid giving away too much to our adversaries. Now you could say why did you need to do that . Im not competent to say what advantage was gained there, but im not sure in the alternative what advantage anyone thinks the Obama Administration was going to get by misleading. The event happened. Did anyone think the Obama Administration was trying to preserve some illusion that terrorists never would hit us as long as obama was president . We have been at war with terrorists 11 years and lost thousands of lives. I dont understand the point that graham is making, and the idea to question why did you put susan rice on the talk shows . Administrations make decisions every week about who they will put out to repeat talking points. It doesnt really make much sense to me to be honest. To that end, then, amy, you have senator graham, other republicans, john mccain for one, they are calling for a special prosecutor. John harwood brings up these questions, but does it ego to the level of needing a special prosecutor . How far do you think this will go . Clearly there is a movement on the republican side to keep this going. As we heard senators graham and mccain want a special investigation. We have representative mike enentire, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee saying they altered the talking points to talk about this event after the fact. But on the other hand we have sax by sham bliss and Joe Lieberman says we dont need the special investigation. It is too soon to say how far it will go. There is clearly an element in the Republican Party that wants to keep it going but uncertain how it will be received and whether people want to pursue this. Speaking of uncertainty, john, did general petraeus clear up the fog surrounding the attack on the consulate in benghazi when he testified . There remains uncertainty about what the mix of factors was that produced this attack. I think not having been in the briefing i dont know how much he cleared that up. He certainly seemed to try to take some of the heat off of susan rice. I think you can see from both what Dianne Feinstein said today, what carl levin said, the way that president obama treated the issue at his News Conference, hes making the point you want to go after somebody on benghazi go after me and i think thats where republicans will end up and see to what extent they want to drag it out. Im not sure the administration would mind, for example, if susan rice were to be nominated by the president for secretary of state im not sure they would mind that fight. The president might embrace and challenge republicans to oppose her. During the campaign, the republicans you could argue lost pursuing this line on benghazi. How far do you think republicans will take this . And will it be perceived as a political attack . Thats right. People may have already forgotten, the election seems like a long way in the past for some of us, but mitt romney tried to make an issue of benghazi in the hours after the attack. He jumped on the administration before we knew that four americans had been killed and that obviously backfired on him. Because the information was still coming out about what happened and how deep the tragedy was. And then in the Foreign Policy debate, the second debate he tried to make benghazi an issue by claiming that the president hadnt called it a terrorist attack when he had used the word in his rose garden press availability on the issue. That, too, backfired. Its interesting, too, in the days following that he stopped mitt romney stopped talking about it. I think that is a reflection of the fact that it was an issue that wasnt working for him. And that might be a cautionary tale for the republicans who are pursuing this today. I think he stopped talking about it after the debate when he was called out on it. John, we have the president in thailand today asked about reaching a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. Heres what he said about that. Im confident that we can get our fiscal situation dealt. Its important to recognize that, yeah, democracy is a little messier than alternative systems of government. But thats because democracy allows everyone to have a voice. You know, to both of you actually the president is looking at a draft of this deal after the thanksgiving break. How realistic is that john and then amy . Im not sure how quickly after thanksgiving there will be a deal but leaders were talking in an couraging way about getting a Framework Agreement before christmas and the end of the year that would outline where the congress will fill in the details on tax increases and entitlement cuts. I think given the spirit, post election that we have seen, at least initially that the prospects are fairly promising. Although we have proven very well how messy our democracy is over the last couple of years and how difficult it will be to get the leaders to get their caucuses to rally behind them. Done deal postthanksgiving, amy or closer to christmas . How encouraging the meeting at the white house should be and should be read is a subject of debate. Another way to look at it is it would have been discouraging had there not been a measure of good ds will expressed after their meeting on friday morning. As john said, there are still huge gaps in terms of where they stand and what they are focusing on, the president has made clear he wants to focus on tax rates for the wealthy. The republicans have made clear that is not an issue they are interested in talking about. More to come. Many thanks. In west coast headlines the debate over what to do with Campaign War Chests after a candidate lose. In our list of number ones, i one airport you must hear about. Keep it here with weekends with alex witt. Into their work, their name on the door, and their heart into their community. Small business saturday is a day to show our support. A day to shop at stores owned by our friends and neighbors. And do our part for the businesses that do so much for us. On november 24th, lets get out and shop small. Challenge the need for such heavy measures with olay. Regenerist microsculpting serum for firmer skin in 5 days. Pretty heavy lifting for such a lightweight. [ female announcer ] olay regenerist. Anyone have occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating . Yeah. One Phillips Colon Health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. Approved [ Phillips Lady ] live the regular life. Phillips. Some headlines on the west coast. A front page story about the president s address ya visit. In the article, analysts say it is a chance to boost business and build on the president s legacy and another title elections over, cash remains. What they must do with Leftover Campaign money and seattle times, return of the red fish how sock eye are rebounding but the effort comes at a cost to the public of 9,000 per fish. New accusations from the House Intelligence Committee. On meet the press mike rogers made a controversial statement over who knew what president about the petraeus scandal. Do you think the president should have been told before election day. Im not sure the president wasnt told before election day. The department of justice didnt notify the president. Thats news. The president knew before election day. I didnt say. That i i dont know. There is no evidence of that. There is no evidence. Joining me is Associated Press correspondent Kimberly Dozier who covers intelligence and special operations. Welcome back to the show. Good to see you. Good to be here. Any reason to believe what that chairman rogers is on to something that the president knew about the affair before the election . That was a question asked by Intelligence Committee members this week. When he did know . The white house says he was informed the thursday after the elections and they said they couldnt let them know the investigation was going on as water of watergate procedures put in place to make sure the people at the highest levels could not interfere with an cia investigation. What would with it matter . It would matter in terms of that was a member of the Obama Administration that was being investigated and that was kept from the public during the election. That is what some of the republican members of congress are asking right now. Everything in our reporting has indicated that the white house informed the president on thursday and he accepted David Petraeus resignation on friday. Well keep asking. I want to get your reaction to fridays benghazi hearing. Was the we question of who knew what when answered there . It took a lot of questioning of the different lawmakers. Everyone depending which party they were part of seemed to hear a different thing. What i was able to get down to is petraeus told them that yes the talking points the cia went sent up in to the interagency process to determine what comes out the other side did include mention of al qaeda splinter groups suspected to be part of the attack but the final talking points referred to them as extremists. Some of the reasons that petraeus said those points were changed, he thought, was because they didnt want to let these al qaeda groups know the Intelligence Community was on to them and they didnt want to prejudice a future investigation by putting out a Public Statement saying that basically the u. S. Government had decide who was responsibility. Any concerns the investigation in to who was responsibilityable for killing the four americans has been sidelined by the debates over the administrations public response . Absolutely. I did hear that complaint from people in the hearings. They said the debate kept moving back to and i have to stress, petraeus was not under oath, he was briefing legislators on friday, voluntarily on what he discovered from his own investigations two weeks ago in libya. What he was telling them is, he was trying to tell them the course of events on the ground as he discovered them. The debate on friday turned to, yes, but what did you know and how did you describe it and who changed those talking points . Petraeus said he wasnt exactly sure. Okay. I want to ask you about the medias reassessment, if you will, now of david piskuetraeus. An article how i was drawn in to the cult of David Petraeus and then a phony hero for a phony war. As i am looking at these im skrim bling with an ouch. They say he created a myth of himself as hero general and his accomplishments, iraq iraq and afghanistan are possibly failures. What do you think of the media reassessment and is it fair . I think when you look