Country will have women in the top three jobs in 2015. Do you know which city it is in i will be joined by the women running this town. Im chuck todd. Joining me are john stanton helene mitchell, andrea mitchell. Welcome to sunday, its meet the press. Good morning. Welcome to first sunday of 2015. The battle lines have been drawn on one side you have a president obama, he will hit the road this week, not just to sell his agenda but to get krid it for the economic recovery and acquire political capital. The white house believes they won the lame duck. You have a more powerful Republican Party. They hold both houses of congress and they are ready to fight over an addressggressive agenda of their own, keystone tachxes and trade and the healthcare battle. Now just as the republicans were ready to take on the president they to deal with a problem. A potential standle involve lescandal involving one of their own. I havent use the veto pen very often. Now i suspect there will be times where i have to pull that pen out. Just as the president is challenging Republican Leaders to prove they can govern, they are scrambling to contain the fallout from the revolution that a top House Republican leader spoke to a White Supremacist Group in 2002. On tuesday the new majority whip Steve Scalese called the speech, leaked to a blogger, a mistake i regret. Im not familiar with who that group was, but from what ive seen about them, they dont represent the values that i represent. I just didnt detest hate group of any kind. The group was founded by david duke. Dukes political adviser denied scalise spoke to the group. Duke says he may have. Republican leaders are behind scalise. John boehner calls him a man of High Integrity and good character saying more than a decade ago, representative scalise made anticipate ir error in judgment. The only africanamerican member of louisiana delegation is defending him. I dont view steve as having racial challenges at all. I think that he is just a hard working Public Servant that will go talk to anybody at any time. Whether he agrees with their social believes or not. Some conservatives particularly the antiboehner voices, are skeptical of how this has been handled and see a double standard believing if he were a real tea partier, he wouldnt be in his job. Eric eric son, how does somebody show up at a david duke organized event in 2002 and claim ignorance. Mark levine, if he was a Tea Party Member of congress, boehner and his cheer leaders would have forced his resignation by now. They are renewing a call for baner to step down. Trent lot was forced to resign his post when at strom thur mans birthday he praised the senator who ran for president in 1948 on a segregationist platform. We voted for him. Were proud of him. If the rest of country had followed our lead we wouldnt have had all these problems. Now republicans have to prove they can govern. Both parties in washington used their weekend video addresses to tee up the same old political fight. Everyone is beginning to realize what millions of you already know, the Affordable Care act is working. One problem with the healthcare law, one of many, is because of its cost and mandates Small Businesses face higher costs and have to hold off on hiring. So will washington work in 2015 . Im joined by two senators. Welcome back to meet the press. Let me start with the Steve Scalise story. Should he serve in leadership as a representative of the Republican Party . If he talked to this group and it seems there is confusion if he did or not, its a grave mistake on his part. But grave is a sdrong word. I think its a grave mistake to speak to the group. Hes a congressman. Hes a democrat, africanamerican, he said steve doesnt have a racist bone in his body and im going to stick with that. You are comfortable with this adds to a str row type of the Republican Party. Well the democrats do want to paint this. I got back from wyoming. This has not come up as a discussion point. People want to talk about the new incoming Republican Leadership in the senate, majority there, jobs, the economy, what were going to do about debt and spending and the healthcare law. You think its a disqualifier . I think thats something that the Republican Leadership will have to decide and live with the consequences. It was an inappropriate place to be. This is a ku klux klan leader david duke. What im more interested in people disown it, they say it was wrong. What do they do about it . What are the actions . I will give you a few. The republicans can get move along on Loretta Lynch. Shes a u. S. Attorney. The nominee for attorney general. Get it done in a month. The Justice Department runs the civil Rights Enforcement in the country. Get the Voting Rights bill done. Theres republicans in the house on it last year, leading it. Get that done. Thats action, not just words and get Immigration Reform done. To me that is what do you when you have a problem like this, you say do you disown it you say you want to move on civil rights, then do it. Is that a proper response . I think we need to do get the new senators sworn into office, move in with specifically with regard to Loretta Lynch and i met where her. We had a cordial meeting. The issue is the president s illegal action on exec she qualified to be attorney general . Thats going to come up with questioning what she views with the president s actions on amnesty. Is it legal is it not legal . Is she going to be the peoples attorney . Is she going to be a president ial protector . Thats a big part of the the hearing will be very much focus on immigration . Thats part of it because of the president s actions which i believe have been illegal. Whats the first bill that will be on president s desk . The president will see the Keystone Pipeline on his desk and its going to be a bell Weather Decision by the president whether to go with jobs in the economy, his state Department Said its 42,000 new jobs. This is a good Infrastructure Project to support widely across the United States. He will decide between jobs and the extreme supporters of not having the pipeline. Where are you on this . I believe that this project has merit. But i still dont think congress should be in the business of deciding where a pipeline is located. I think the president needs to make a decision, a lot of us are frustrated that it has taken thp long. I think the bigger issue how are you going to vote . To allow the process to continue . Allow the process to continue in favor to allow the president to make a decision. Im getting us from sfrated with this. I dont think you will see votes switching on the democratic side from just a month ago. The bigger issue is symbolic has become symbolic. Bigger issue, were the number one producer of oil in the world. We have surpassed saudi arabia. Gas prices are down to Something Like two bucks a gallon. Were starting to move on climate change. I think what i want to look for is things where there is Common Ground. There are things. Mitch mcconnell said this week they dont want to make a point, they want to make a difference. Infrastructure funding. Theres Common Ground on that. Getting the money back from overseas, over a trillion dollars over there and linking that into infrastructure funding. Moving on making sure our High School Kids are getting degrees with a job that we have that they get one in two year degrees, that we do something on the fact its harder to afford college. I think those are things that there can be Common Ground on and we can go to the president and work with him on this. I want to go to healthcare. You said i think two different messages on where you are on the healthcare law. In october of 2014, you said you would imagine that there will be a vote to repeal but lets be realistic obama will be in the white house for two years and he wont sign that. Then this week you said, we will use every tool that is out there, including reconciliation, meaning that you might have a repeal in the budget in a reconciliation vote that would be plan da tory with the budget. Where are you going . Is the priority the Republican Party to repeal healthcare or are you going to quote unquote fix it and go after it piece by piece . The priority is to repeal this healthcare law. Its bad for patients, bad for the providers, nurses and doctors who take care of them and terrible for taxpayers. We will put on the president s desk at a minimum stripping away the most damaging parts of the healthcare law. We will resume get back to the 40 hour workweek, which is hurting people right now in losing some of their pay. We are going to get rid of the employer mandate you are not going to a repeal. There will be a vote on repeal. Thats probably not going to get to the president s desk . In the white house, the president will veto that. We will get on his desk for signature bipartisan support, eliminating the tax on medical devices the employer mandate the 40hour workweek. We have bipartisan support for that. There have been votes on those bills in the house Many Democrats have supported those efforts. This healthcare law continues the costs are crippling the middle class, the Vice President in his message said things are great. They are not. There seems to be some dispute about whats working or not. Lets go to the medical device tax. You will support the repeal of this. Its important in your state. Where are you going thats how this law is being paid for are on small taxes and fee opens various things including the medical device industry. If you pick that apart how do you flow that 20 other Interest Groups are going to do the same thing . Dont you start pulling at a thread that actually undoes the healthcare law . This issue was not part of the agreement originally. A major tax was smacked on the medical device industry. It was in arbitrary reduced in half. Senator hatch and i are leading the effort. There are democrats supporting it. The hope is that we will find a way to pay for this and get this tax you havent figured out how to pay for it . Anything you can leave our viewers with . Again, we are looking at a way to reduce this tax. I dont want to speak for senator hatch. We will keep working on finding a way to do it. This is a tax on manufacturing. The other piece to remember here that we had have 57 straight months of economic job growth in the private sector. We had the biggest reduction to the Unemployment Rate this year that we have seen since 1984. Our economy is gaining steam. It is now important in this session for congress to gain steam and to get to work on compromise. I know you will say you hope 2015 is about compromise not conflict. But whats that likelihood . I think im optimistic. I think we have a great opportunity as well as an obligation to the American People to listen to what the voters said. They want us to work together. Were ready to deliver effective, efficient and accountable government. We can govern from a position of opportunity and not crisis when you see the economy. Thats what were going to do. We will see. You sound good here. We will be watching. So will a lot of voters. Reaction from the panel. John i want to go to the issue of scalise. You are a capitol hill reporter. These stories look like they die down and then everybody comes back and suddenly he has to survive one more week here before this is quote unquote over for him. He has a week. Assuming theres no more instances of him speaking to groups like this, and assuming he can deal with some of the questions about the state level votes on Martin Luther king day and get past this you ishe should be fine. Talking to republicans, we are supporting him but he has to deal with this. We will not take any kind of heat for him on this anymore because he will start backing up our agenda if he hangs out there. Andrea trent lott, you could say said nice things about an old man at his 100th birthday party. How he said it there was an agenda by some who wanted to get rid of lott. Scalise doesnt have enemies yet. If there was an agenda to get rid of him, this could have been used as an excuse. It could have. I dont think hes over it yet. We will see what happens with leadership votes. He has to be the whip, he has to have relationships within his caucus. If you look back, theres just no credible way that anyone in louisiana politics did not know what david duke represented. We showed the meet the press famous meet the press with a couple of them with duke. Tim russert questioning david duke in 1999, two years, three years before this happened. He was running for congress. He was in a runoff a decade earlier for governor. Before i move on, you matt you wrote this, five ways you know you you are speaking to white supremacist. It was founded by david duke. Banners that say white group. The name of the group. The hotel hosting the event is ashamed. And no one there cares about his tax stand, which is what scalise claimed. You dont buy the story . I dont. I was having fun with it. Why this story resonates is because the leadership of the Republican Party says they want to be responsible, a party that can show america they are serious about governing. Theres a feeling they are indull gent off the radar screen of some of the darker impulses in their party and the darker impulses in america. Thats why a story from 2002 resonates the way it does. I dont think its credible just because david dukes right hand man said maybe he didnt speak. I think he was there and everybody knew what was going on. Lets move to what we saw there senators individually always say that they will get things done and they will work together. Then the reality hits the road. Keystone gets on the pres desk. He will veto it. What is life like in washington . We go back to gridlock in washington. Im just curious to see how the democrats and republicans are going to do are going to move forward on any agenda this year. What you will see what the republicans are going to discover is how you have to govern from the center. You cant govern from the right. And i think the scalise stuff speaks to that. The republicans want to move forward, they want to talk about keystone, they are talking about you just mentioned you began your show with the words White Supremacist Group and ku klux klan. In 2014. How did this happen . Exactly. At a time where you look at the republicans are looking to appeal to hispanics and looking to show that they can govern from the center and they are inclusive of the country this is the last talking about david duke and White Supremacy is not where they want to be. John, im curious with senate republicans, are they going to have a harder time finding six to eight democrats to get tlem over 60 vote thresholds or hadder for boehner and mcconnell to agree on specific pieces of legislation . I have been curious about that. I dont think i dont think its a problem with boehner and mcconnell. I think they get along fine. Personally, yes. Agree on most things. They will have trouble finding a way to get enough House Republicans to agree to things they can get this sort of revolving cast of six or eight democrats. Its never going to be the same thats what the senator was saying. It wont be the same ten democrats. It will be different democrats depending on the bill. One of the first things they will do is this immigration vote on dhs. That is going to really test their ability to get anybody after that back on. Wait until they get to trade. Which democrats are going to join with the president and who wont on trade . He thinks he can cut a deal on the on trade with republicans. With trade always go to the coast. Coastal senators usually are more off to trade than the ones forget about the midwest. We will pause here. Back with a three star general who says we have lost the wars in iraq and afghanistan. Goodnight. Goodnight. For those kept awake by pain. The night is anything but good. Introducing new aleve pm. The first to combine a safe sleep aid. Plus the 12 hour strength of aleve. For pain relief that can last until the am. Now you can have a good night and a. Good morning new aleve pm. For a better am. Welcome back. A few years ago president obama was promising that 2015 would be the year that americans could stop worrying about wars in iraq and afghanistan. Technically, u. S. Combat operations did formally come to a close in afghanistan in 2014. However, here are the facts. There are still going to be 11000 american soldiers in the country just as chaos is beginning thanks to a resurge enter taliban. There will be 3,000 american troops in iraq where the situation there is if anything bleaker. Thanks to isis slaughtering thousands and controlling that country as well as syria. We asked our chief Foreign Correspondent to look at what appear to be wars now without an end. Reporter isis now has a new kind of brutal propaganda tool. They are asking for tips online on how it should murder a jordanian pilot it captured the First Coalition pilot to be taken captive. Suggestions have been tajikly pouring in, including impalement and burning him alive. Isis hardly seems deterred by the u. S. Led war against it. Now in its seventh month. 2014 was the year when old wounds and old wars in the middle east Many Americans hoped were over returned to cente