Senator Barton News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Characterization that senator barton made party leaders trying to keep joe barton away. since 19 lt, he has gotten more than a million dollars in donations from the oil companies themselves. it's not too shocking that he would make a statement like that. that being said, a huge political firestorm up here on capitol hill, even the president had this to say this afternoon. >> and i find it stranl you to suggest that if in fact we insisted that bp demonstrate their preparedness to put aside billions of dollars in this case, in this case $20 billion to take care of the immediate needs of people w...

Safety a priority. is this the same kind of assurance that you're giving us now? >> i have throughout my tenure been very explicit about the priority of safety in bp. it is the first word i utter every time i talk to -- >> bp's ceo tony hayward, since 10:00 this morning, with a couple of breaks, maybe an hour and 45, he's been in the hot seat for four hours, give or take, and one huge piece of controversial statements that came out of this didn't come from him but came from a congressman joe barton who called the agreement to set off fund to pay the people who have been hurt by this a $20 bill...

Case anything was misconstrued, he is fully behind this investigation of bp's actions and that there is no doubt in his mind that bp is responsible for this spill. let's go to our capitol hill correspondent luke russert and this has set off a storm of controversy, luke. >> reporter: it absolutely has, chris, an amazing subplot within the hearings here. mr. barton says he's apologizing to bp on behalf of the white house. a lot of this says they this is the ammunition they need to directly tie the republican party with that of big oil. mr. barton's comments have not only upset democrats, they ha...

Marina, the guy who has one shrimping boat t guy who has one small business, he can't afford to lose $10,000, 15,000, 30,000 a month. >> senator barton said he was sorry if anybody misconstrued his comments, but the damage has really been done. one republican i spoke to said this was absolutely one of the worst things that could happen to us, we gave the democrats an early christmas gift on this. a really big blunder on mr. barton's part. michelle backman saying that this was a redistribution of wealth fund. you're going to see democrats in the next few days trying to paint republicans as the ...

Under attack for not taking -- they were very quick to release a statement against mr. barton, as you saw the vice president speaking out forcefully right there, this will now become republicans are with big oil, a really big political victory today for democrats and mr. barton's slipup. >> thanks very much, we appreciate it, luke. we want to talk now to governor haley barbour, he's in blue springs, mississippi, one of the groups of people we have seen in the past will probably have a little understanding of what the bp execs have gone through with this hearing, some of the toyota execs who ...