laboratory, juno to jupiter. astronauts still go to the international space station, 365 days from earth there. and i'm a big space geek. i love that. we'll see you back here tomorrow. "in the arena" starts right now. good evening and welcome. i'm tom foreman. tonight we are getting mixed signals about a possible back room deal on the debt ceiling just hours away from what president obama at least at one point called a deadline for a decision. "the new york times" says president obama and the republican speaker of the house john boehner are close to an agreement. roughly it would involve $3 trillion in cuts and an eventual

overhaul of the entire tax system. here's the catch, though. other sources are shooting down the idea that this is even happening as fast and hard as they can. listen to boehner himself earlier today on rush limbaugh's radio show. >> rush, there is no deal. no deal publicly, no deal privately. there is absolutely no deal. >> no deal, no deal, no deal. now, here's the white house spokesman jay carney. >> there is no deal. we are not close to a deal. we are -- obviously, the president is in discussions with all the leaders of congress as well as other members, and exploring the possibility of getting the best deal possible, which is something he's held for a long time now. >> we'll go live to washington in just a moment where nerves are frayed, anxiety is high, and confusion clearly reigns. first, here's some of the other stories we'll be ripping into tonight. the hacking scandal just keeps spreading. with charges of eavesdropping,

bribery, and something called bl bl blaging. the murdochs aren't the only ones in the cross fire. the fiasco on fleet street. and he was little darth vader in the super bowl ad. he's also on his third pacemaker and his eighth operation. a kid with a bum ticker who's all heart. then millions are starving, but the tragedy goes beyond africa as food becomes as precious as oil, one man warns hunger could spark the next world war. >> this is the kind of night you get into the news business for. i'm telling you so, so much is going on, and are you ready for some football? after several months of an nfl lockout, there may be a new deal just in time to save the season. we've just heard about it this evening. we will have all the details on that later on in the broadcast. first let's get back to our top

story. washington's all-consuming debt ceiling debate. kate bolduan is following the reports. we've been going through this for days and days. we hear there is a deal, and then we find out there is not. is there anything vaguely definite at this point? >> reporter: we definitely know, tom, the president called democratic leaders to the white house late this afternoon. it was a two-hour meeting that broke up just a short time ago. we haven't been provided a readout quite yet, or we'll have to find out if we will even at all. i will tell you after that there definitely doesn't seem to be anything definite at this point. a lot of conversation, tom. it appears that president obama and house speaker john boehner are making a fresh drive, if you will, to try to reach a big deal. try to avoid having to maybe go to that fallback plan we keep talking about so much. you laid out really well what the conversation is about those ideas.

$3 trillion possibly in debt reduction over ten years. then the details get a little squishy. spending cuts, entitlement cuts, and then a question of revenue. even if i just lay those out there, it seems there's a little bit in here that everyone can not like, if you will. so we're starting to learn more details about not very much, i tell you. it does seem squishy. you laid out very well. john boehner came out to say no deal very quickly, but it shows how sensitive this whole thing is right now. even the talk of elements of what's on the table coming out has people really getting excited. when this came out, tom, just very briefly, democrats were heading into a caucus meeting, a policy lunch, if you will, and the budget director, he was going in there to brief democratic senators. i was told by a source who is very familiar with this caucus. this person put it as jack lou took blow after blow by democratic senators in there who were saying that this deal, even talk of this element of

framework would be very bad for their constituents. people very upset about what they're hearing, but we don't really know if it's a deal yet, of course. >> very briefly here, kate. is there any sense from people there saying, you know, if this could be kept under wraps for the time being, maybe it ought to be. it seems like every deal that comes out is coming out prematurely, and that's what's creating more of a firestorm. is there any sense of that in either party of people saying, if they can get a deal and they have to do it quietly in the back and roll it out, let's do t it's the only way we're going to get there. >> reporter: a few things on that. i would say there probably is an element of that. people, if they hear of elements of even what's on the table coming to the press and then coming to these members of congress, that's upsetting them. they don't want to hear it from the press. they want to hear it from their leaders before the press. so there is an element, if the conversation is going to happen and you're having that conversation and back room deal, come talk to us before you talk to the press. so there is that. but any element that we're hearing of what's possibly even

being talked about, you're hearing very quickly, very strongly from the left and the right, there are people who are not going to cave and not going to compromise on their positions. it seems as this point they're trying to find a way to thread the needle, if you will, to find some kind of compromise that includes some of these elements that can thread the needle now to just make it through the house and through the senate at this point. >> kate, i know you might have a long evening there. i have images of you being trampled by herds of congressmen to react to something. thanks for joining us with the latest on all of that. we're going to stick on that. but in the heat of the debt ceiling debate, we may be overlooking a simple and troubling fact. no matter what is done, it very likely could cost the nation jobs, which is what so many of us are worried about in this country. we asked fareed zacharia, an astute observer of the economy, to talk it over a while ago.

fareed, we've been hearing so much about what will go wrong if the debt ceiling is broken. and yet i feel this rising current of people saying, make no mistake about it. even if we solve this, there are going to be hard times for this country as a result of the solution. >> well, the debt ceiling itself is almost a sideshow. the fact that it has become center stage is just because one group, the tea party, within the republican party, decided to make it that. the debt ceiling simply reflects the fact that we are spending more than we take in. >> and we have an economy in shambles right now all over the country. >> and we don't have growth. the only way you're going to get this economy back on track, tom, is if you have growth. as we look historically, the times that the budget deficit has gone from being a number one concern to moving down when we solved the problem, it's all been we grew faster than we thought we were. if you can get growth back, if

we can get people back employed, paying taxes, you can't cut your way to a happy future because the more you cut, the more you get yourself into a downward spiral in greece. what does it mean to cut government spending? it means to lay off people who don't have jobs. they can't pay taxes, can't go to the diner, can't buy stuff. so it may work in theory, but in practice, the more you cut, the more you're depressing the economy. >> one of the predictions i've read is that the solution to the debt ceiling problem could cost us 1 million jobs over the next few years. we could lose what we've created in a very short period of time. do you think that's too dire? do you think that's possible? >> it depends on how much we cut and how fast we do. i think what president obama has been trying to do, again, i think, quite wisely, is push some of these cuts off into the future. when you signal to the markets we're getting our budget deficit under control but don't do it in an economy that is fragile right now. if we were to precipitously

start laying off wholesale school teachers, firemen, policemen, then, yeah, because all of a sudden, you have fewer people paying taxes, fewer people buying goods, fewer people buying products. we really need to look at what's happening in europe. the governments that cut too fast too far actually depressed their gdp growth and increased their budget deficits as a result. >> talk to me about the key building blocks that have to be restored. i have had many conversations over months where people have said, if we do not restore the value of housing in this country and the construction market, nothing else we do will solve this. is that a fair building block to begin with? >> i think it's absolutely fair. the problem is it is the most difficult building block to restore because housing went through probably the biggest bubble since the 1920s. it burst. if you look at the nasdaq bubble, the nasdaq bubble burst at its peak at 5,000. what is the nasdaq now? it's 3,000. in other words, 15 years later,

you're not even -- sorry. 21 years later, you're not even halfway. you're barely halfway back to the prices. i wouldn't suggest that would happen in housinging. >> it might, though. i have experts in housing saying it could be 15 years before markets recover in some places. >> then the question becomes what can you do? the answer is you need a lot of government support. maybe, but part of the problem was too much government support and too much government encouragement to people to take on large debts. >> let's say we can't tackle housing right now or up front. give me a couple other building blocks that you think are critical to address right now so we get beyond not just the debt ceiling fight, but our overall inability to create jobs. not one of them seems to have a clue how to do it. >> there is one possible way to do it. we have an infrastructure in this country that is in shambles, point one. point two, we have 20% unemployment in the construction industry. so there are millions of people out of work in that industry.

30-year money, 30-year bond rates are 2%. so you could borrow money at 2% for 30 years, rebuild american infrastructure, put people to work. you know, we shouldn't think of this -- all expenditure is not the same. when you build a bridge or expand a highway that is going to increase economic activity for the next 100 years, that's called an investment. that's not an expenditure. >> i think that was the theory behind the shuttle ready projects. hey, we're going to have these projects. and even the president found out not all shovel ready is ready. >> not all shovel ready is ready, but remember before it gets a bad name. out of the $800 million plan, only $100 million was infrastructure. most of that turned out to be on budget, but it's a $14 trillion

economy. why did china manage an infrastructure that worked? here's the answer. they spent ten times as much as we did as a percentage of gdp. you can't expect to get a big bang by putting $100 billion into a $14 trillion economy. >> let me ask you one last question. does it trouble you we keep looking at all of this so much in terms of the politics, which party comes out wining in this whole thing? i'm just convinced that both parties ultimately lose terribly because we all lose with problems like this. >> i think it's the worst part of washington right now, which is it seems as though, you take something like infrastructure, republicans have supported something i've been pushing, a national infrastructure bank to finance this kind of infrastructure, so it doesn't cost the public much. the private sector would do it. kay bailey hutchinson sponsored a bill, richard lugar, chuck hagel backed it, and can't get

any traction? why? because obama proposed it. it seems to be a uniting factor in the republican party that whatever obama proposes, they can't support. we have to worry about getting the business of the country done and not worry about who gets credit for it because, if we get into this game, we have a national energy policy to solve, immigration, health care. we've got to get the jobs done. and oh, by the way, we've got to deal with the debt ceiling. we can't worry about who gets credit. we need to get these things done too fast. >> fareed zakaria, thanks for coming. >> my pleasure, tom. >> another word out of washington of a deal on the possible debt ceiling. if anything comes up in this hour, we'll get it right to you. just ahead, the flames of scandal seem to be engulfing ever more papers on london's fleet street, and that is raising the temperature of an iconic new york newspaper man who says stop the presses. it's time to throw the con men out. miles per gallon on the highway.

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so every year my family throws this great reunion in austin. but this year, i can only afford one trip and i've always wanted to learn how to surf. austin's great -- just not for surfing. so i checked out hotwire. and by booking with them, i saved enough to swing both trips. see, hotwire checks the competition's rates every day so they can guarantee their low prices. that's how i got a 4-star hotel on the beach in san diego for half price. ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e ♪ hotwire.com first it was hacking, and now it's something called blagging, word tonight that british police are widening their investigations into possible activity by journalists

into several newspapers, not just rupert murdoch's disgraced "news of the world." what is bla fwchlt ging, and how do these newspapers do it? it's recklessly or deceitfully getting personal information without that person knowing. i don't know why we need a special term for it, but apparently we do. they did this by hiring private investigators. the daily news hired one investigator 552 times. dan, let me ask you something. up front, the impression that the murdoch empire would want you to have, yeah, expand the investigation because everybody does this. >> that's what "the wall street journal" editorial said a few days ago, sort of this notion, why are we the only ones being looked at? this has been happening for years on fleet street. boy, if the investigation is now expanding into other papers, news corp. and murdoch have got to be thrilled.

they've got to be saying, well, finally, it's not just us. at least they're looking into others of the the minu others. the minute an investigation begins, people tend to find things. whether it's what they were looking for is the question. the last subject that people want in an investigation is that investigation, which is the problem for the murdochs, which is why investigating others is only good for them. >> so the other papers would have to come out pretty squeaky clean to turn it all back to murdoch, and even in the meantime, just the headlines they're investigating others suggests other people did the same thing. >> well, yeah, this isn't to suggest that this is going to somehow absolve murdoch of all his problems. it's not. but it is something i'm sure that he and his team have advocated for, which is to say, why are you just picking on us? you used this term blagging, which i've never heard of before, and i think it's important to distinguish between getting information that people didn't want you to get and engaging in illegal activity.

>> totally different things. >> i'm not suggesting it's a good thing or it's a positive thing or it's an okay thing that certain media entities are gathering information that they shouldn't be gathering. but when you cross the line into illegality, it's a totally separate line. >> you mentioned the question of the law, and you raised a really interesting point here. one of the things that, as they try to investigate this, they've got to get people to talk, and you've been looking at the degree to which the murdoch empire seems to be shutting down the talkers. >> i mean, look, it's not now that they're shutting them down, which is, look, there's a law firm they've been working with for a long time since 2007. it's called harbottle and lewis. they were apparently the recipients of a lot of information about this scandal over the years. now, they have said -- the murdochs have said, we give you permission to talk to the authorities, but we don't waive our attorney-client privilege. it allows them to answer basic

questions from the authorities, but it doesn't allow them to answer the questions that everyone wants to know, which is what did you know, how much did you know, when did you know it, et cetera. the firm has come out -- this is astounding -- has made a public statement, which has effectively said, we would love to clear up the record. we would love to clear up misconceptions and false statements out there, but we can't. very rare to see a law firm do that. >> what about other people out there? a person always with the resources of rupert murdoch gets in trouble, he can settle with all sorts of the worst cases and say, i'll give you a bunch of money. just shut up. >> there have been settlements. there was a soccer player they had a big settlement with, and one of the terms of the settlement was confidentiality. so if you violate confidentiality, we get our money back. so from his perspective, he's not going to violate that confidentiality. again, there's someone else who's got information that currently they can't share about

what's happening. >> does anybody wind up other than the street level people, does anybody else wind up or have a threat of jail out of this? it looks like the privacy protection act, the electronic communications privacy act, the foreign communications act -- there are a lot of potential laws broken here, but the question is how do you tag that to anybody other than the guy in the field who did it maybe? >> under the foreign practices act, there have been people who served time as a result of bribing foreign officials. the problem is, the issue is you've got to be able to demonstrate, i think -- some would argue you don't necessarily to demonstrate this, but i think you have to demonstrate there was some knowledge on the part of people here in the united states that this bribery was going on abroad. remember things like that the act i'm talking about generally aren't used for these kinds of purposes. generally it's used when you're trying to get contracts from a foreign government. people have been put in prison because they bribed the thai officials, for example, on a film festival to get special

access. that's generally the way this law is used. prosecutors increasingly have become very aggressive with the use of this law. so it wouldn't surprise me if they used it at least as an investigation tool. this comes back to the beginning of our conversation, which is the last thing you want is an investigation because the more they investigate, the more they find, and when they find things that might have been viewed as rogue in a different context, suddenly all get linked to this one thing they're looking at. >> they tie it all together, yeah. >> that's a worst case scenario for me. >> we'll see because this investigation clearly is going on. i'm sure that means we'll talk to you again. dan abrams, nice having you here. this scandal is clearly reaching far beyond british shores, i'll tell you that, casting a shadow on news rooms all across the globe where polls tell us a lot of you don't hold we in the media in particularly high regard. it's spurred some journalists to call for a house cleaning in the whole business, and no one wants it more than pete hamill. he's a new york newspaper icon, worked for the new york post,

village voice, newsday, new york magazine, and esquire. and he's in his spare time written 11 novels. the latest is called "tabloid city." what are the odds? he believes, if this kind of activity was going on in a news room, he believes someone beyond the street level reporters, had to know. so when i spoke to pete hamill, i asked him, who? >> i know that the editors i worked for, if you came to them and said, look, i got this spook. you hire him, he can get into any mailbox in new york. this is before the internet. >> i've got a special spy, sort of a secret agent, in effect. >> he can open the mailbox. he can take the mail out. he can heat them so that you can read the contents. he can seal them. >> if you want to one of your editors and said, i've got a guy that can do the very thing they're doing over in britain, what would have happened. the editor would have said, what do you think about that? let's do it. let's start with this. i've got a better idea.

give me your press card. give me your keys. go down the hall and get your check and never come back. they would have kicked these guys out, which is the thing is what repels me about it because i know great british news men who would never dream of doing that, irish news men in dublin and belfast. they would never do that. >> so when you think of rupert murdoch being the guy in charge of these people and that he's in charge of papers here, what do you think? >> well, i -- if he turned a blind eye to it, if he said, i don't care how they got it, we got it, then he has to examine his own conscience because he was creating a culture of corruption, not petty

corruption, not getting two tickets to a ball game or something. major corruption. he should be thinking about what he did to the craft of journalism itself. you and i know people who died practicing this profession. as imperfect as it is, they died. they were killed and shot and burned in some cases. and to do this and call yourself by the same name that they called themselves with, those heroic people who went to the bad parts of the world, i think that's an outrage, that part of it. whether i don't know it to be truthful how much murdoch would know or his son or his editor, but i'm sure, if they were spending money on corrupt ones, somebody knew, somebody high up. i couldn't get $50 to go to philadelphia without the approval of an editor on a piece of paper. >> they watch the money very closely. do you expect to see real

fallout here from this scandal? >> you know, i worry about "the post." i worry about it because it gave me my life. i got walked into a city room in 1960 for the first time, and i had the rest of my life ahead of me. i wanted to live. i wanted to outlive me. >> do you think it's in danl? >> it could be because it's such a minor footnote to these immense billion dollar too big to fail empire that, if it took the sacrifice of that, it could. it could. if that happens, i'd be one of the people weeping because i know people who work there who are terrific journalists. i know people who worked there, when i was a kid, who if they're not in heaven, i ain't going. i want it to live. so i hope this thing with all the smarmy stuff that was going on in england doesn't

contaminate all of it. >> last question. what do you hope comes out of this for this profession that you and i have practiced for a long time? >> what i hope is a reexamination of the basic function of the profession, which is to go out there and get the truth. find the truth. you don't break laws except for the truth. particularly unless you tell everybo everybody. if they got this story by corrupting three scotland yard guys whose names are, which is never going to happen, but i hope everybody vows to themselves and to their staffs, if they're editors, that we're going to put out a paper without stooping into the gutter. we're not going into the gutter. we're an instrument for helping

people up, not to take the whole standards of our profession and lower them, that we end up saying that great men, giants preceded us, and those other ones that died for this profession should not be ashamed of using the name, using the thing, the word newspaper man or newspaper woman or journalist. that's something we ought to wear like a badge of honor. >> pete hamill, thanks so much for being here. >> thank you. >> next up, the african famine threatening the lives of millions, particularly children. it is the worst it has been in decades, and importantly, this may be a sign of things to come. food shortages in places you would never expect. [ male announcer ] introducing the ultimate business phone --

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in africa tonight, the latest numbers say some 10 million people may now be at risk for famine following up on the story we told you about last night. the heart of the crisis is somalia, a country mired in war and poverty, now plagued by the worst drought in 60 years. the united nations is urgently calling for a massive and immediate international response. meanwhile, thousands of somalis have fled across the border to kenya. we filed this report. >> reporter: this is the edge of the camp for somali refugees are streaming into, thousands every week. children are the worst off, many of them malnourished, most of them seem to have a respiratory problem because of the dust and wind blasting through here. they're living in terrible conditions like this. they're in these huts, which are basically constructed out of tarpaulins. they cook in this tiny little

space with no shelter. when they come here, they come expecting help. they come expecting food, water, the basic dignity that refugees should get when they move to another country. but here they even have to go out into the outer areas to defend kate because there's no latrines for them, and they say they're worried there could even be a disease outbreak in these areas. while people talk politics in al shabab, getting aid into somalia to help the situation, it's here in dadaab camp where people are the worst off. darren mckenzie, cnn, dadaab, kenya. >> the scale of this famine is rapidly shaping up to be something almost unbelievable. even more frightening, the hunger gripping africa may be the sign of a growing food crisis, one that is threatening the very stability of many societies as we know them. this according to lester brown, president of the earth policy institute and author of "world on the edge, how to prevent environmental and economic

collapse." he joins me now from washington. lester, thanks for being here to talk about just a dreadful, dreadful story. before we look at the larger crisis, let me ask you something about africa. aid organizations estimate we've got about 10 million people now at risk, not just in somalia, but kenya, ethiopia, uganda, and other east african countries. how did a catastrophe of this magnitude, seem to slip up on the world. >> well, tom, you referred to somalia as a country. it is a place on the map, but it's not a country in any meaningful sense of the term. there's no effective government to manage the situation, and we have trends beginning to converge now. somalia has one of the fastest population growth rates in the world. the average woman has more than six children. that's the average. and the resource base -- the forest, the grasslands, the soils are deteriorating. soil erosion is a major problem. we just heard about the dust blowing through the camp.

that's an indication of soil erosion. so these trends are converginco and the trigger seems to be this drought, which is creating a horrendous situation. >> ox fam has pushed that famine as we think of it isn't just a shortage of food. it's a shortage of food, other environmental factors, social factors, governmental factors. i know we have problems with various militant groups in this area as well. all of this comes to play. >> it's a combination of things. on the demand side, we have population growth worldwide. that 216,000 people at the dinner table tonight who weren't there last night. it's 3 billion people trying to move up the food chain, consuming more grain and livestock products. and in the united states we're converting almost one-third of our grain harvest into fuel for cars. so that's beginning to squeeze on -- put pressure on the demand side. meanwhile, on the supply side,

we have climate change. we have spreading water shortages. and these are beginning to make it more difficult for farmers to expand production fast enough to keep up with the growth and demand. >> let's bring up a map that we have here. you said the regions most at risk are the arab world, subsaharan africa, and subcontinental india. what are the challenges in each of these regions in particular? why are we highlighting these? >> well, india, if you look at the indian subcontinent, the population is 1.4 billion, same as china, which includes bangladesh and pakistan of it. it's a lot of people in a small area, but they're running out of water, particularly in india. they're overpumping their aquefers, their wells are running dry. and they're projected to grow by 1 million people in the years ahead. subsaharan africa has morelan l,

but its population is growing very fast, and it doesn't have the resources to develop the productivity of the land fully. so that's the problem there. and the hunger and malnutrition in the world is concentrated in the indian subcontinent and subsaharan africa. >> do you think the rest of the world -- there's been a big call from the u.n. to say, we need to help these people. is there help available in the rest of the world with the economy teetering the way it is? a lot of countries saying we'd like to help. but we just can't. >> if it's just the horn of africa, 10 million people, 12 million people, that's large. if it becomes bigger and affects a number of countries, then it would be scramble time. the question is how much would countries be willing to provide? we don't have surpluses anymore. there was a time in the u.s. when we had huge grain surpluses, and we would use those whenever needed. we don't have those anymore, nor

does anyone else. we're in a fairly tight situation now. >> lester brown, thanks so much for joining us. we'll talk to you more as this goes on. to find out how you can make a difference and help victims of the famine in east africa, go to cnn.com/impact. it's worth checking out. just ahead, a war of words between two members of congress. this time it's not across the aisle, it's over the backyard fence. and amid all of these serious problems in the world, it's personal, of all things. my - what, my hair? no. car insurance. i switched to progressive and they gave me discounts for the time i spent with my old company. saved a bunch. that's a reason to switch. big savings -- it's a good look for you. [ blower whirring ] [blower stops] the safety was off. out there with a better way. now, that's progressive.

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we all know we have big problems on our hands with afghanistan, the debt ceiling, joblessness, and all of that. we can't help but notice a school yard scuffle on the floor of congress. on one side, debbie wasserman schultz, the chairman of the democratic national committee, never met a sound bite she didn't like.

and on the other side, alan west, republican from florida's second district, a tea party favorite and no stranger to controversy. they're practically neighbors, right. it started when representative schultz lobbed something over the backyard fence. take a listen. >> incredulously, the gentleman from florida, who represents thousands of medicare beneficiaries, as do i, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for medicare beneficiaries, unbelievable from a member from south florida. >> well, neighbor west took huge offense at this. he fired back an e-mail to her personal e-mail, i might note, and he said, i quote, "you are the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the house of representatives." wow, that tells you something, especially considering how many might qualify for that title. and he goes on to say -- and again i quote -- "you have proven repeatedly that you are not a lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me." it doesn't stop there.

now there are demands for apologies. frankly, with all the other things we're dealing with, we're not sure who should be apologizing to whom. with unemployment rising and the government about to go broke, you can't help but wonder if they should apologize to us for bringing it up in the middle of all this. we thought you'd find it as amusing as we did that they got into a scuffle amidst all the work that needs to be done. up next, the youngest gjedi master hoping the force is with him when he heads to congress and fights for children's health care. tural minerals. give you sheer coverage instantly, then go on to even skin tone in four weeks. aveeno tinted moisturizers. but i did. they said i couldn't fight above my weight class. but i did. they said i couldn't get elected to congress.

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the cost of medicaid and other programs are the hottest issue in these budget talks are real problems. chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta met up with one who

you just might recognize. sanjay? >> next week washington is going to feel the force, so to speak. he's a little guy with a big mission. take a look at who i plet when i was out in l.a. >> dr. gupta? >> yes, sir. >> you're it. >> i'm it? max page only knows one speed, full steam ahead. you've probably seen max before even though you might not know it. remember this volkswagen ad from super bowl xlv? darth vader? nope. just max. >> yeah, we have that. >> within mere seconds of meeting him, max was asking about my daughters. >> three girls. >> let me guess, 4-year-old? >> yes. >> 2-year-old? >> yes. >> 6-year-old? >> you got it. how did you know? we're at the children's hospital of los angeles with max and his brother ells to see dr. michael soka. >> you're getting your pacemaker checked? >> uh-huh. >> that's good.

>> that's right. max has a pacemaker. actually, it's his third, and he's only 6 years old. for parents jennifer and buck, the first sign of trouble came before max was even born. >> my 38-week appointment, we found out that max had structural damage to his heart. they didn't know -- they couldn't get a good heartbeat. they took an emergency c-section, born in a whirl wind. >> the last feeling i remember is it's almost hopelessness because it's out of my hands as a dad, and as a dad, that's not something you're used to. >> i just said, please, just save my son. that's all we're here for. i don't even know what you just said. i don't understand you're going to do. i just need you to save my son. i need to have a chance to know this kid. >> it's hard to imagine, but for mom and dad, it was all a blur. max was born with a heart condition known as tetrology of flow. it's rare, and it includes four separate problems in the heart, which leads to a lack of oxygen in the blood. without a pacemaker and eight major operations so far, max probably wouldn't be here.

can you feel it, max? can you feel the pacemaker? >> if you like touch it or like something hits it, it's kind of when i feel it. >> it's like the movie "cars." you know they show the pistons in engines going around, you want them working together, right? you don't want one going like this and another one going at a different rate. you have to have them working together. >> and something like this for max or any childlike max should be cared for in a children's hospital. could any hospital? >> no, no, this is a fairly sophisticated, fairly subspecialized area of medicine. i'm a pediatric electrophysiology. there are probably slightly over 100 of us in the country. there aren't that many people who really do what we do. >> it's that kind of skill that max needs. i mean, tom, there are only 56 of these specialized children's hospitals in the whole country, and as washington talks about budget cuts, the programs that train these types of doctors are on the chopping block. so little max is headed to capitol hill next week to lobby

for that program and also to argue against cuts to medicaid, which helps tens of millions of other kids. we'll see how it goes. tom? >> thanks so much, sanjay. you can see the rest of sanjay's report on mini darth vader, max page, on this weekend's "sanjay gupta m.d., washington feels the force." don't miss it. saturday and sunday at 7:30 a.m. eastern on cnn. well, well worth your time. just ahead, nfl owners are ready to open training camps. we just don't know if the players are ready to report. it's breaking news this evening. we'll have the latest on when or whether you can fire up your grill and get that tailgate party started of the [ male announcer ] get ready for the left lane. the volkswagen autobahn for all event is back. right now, get a great deal on new volkswagen models, including the jetta, awarded a top safety pick by the iihs. that's the power of german engineering. hurry in and lease the jetta s

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a developing story in the nfl lockout this evening. the owners have kicked the ball down the field. moments ago, commissioner roger goodell have announced they have unanimously voted for an agreement and passed it back to the players in the hopes of getting an agreement there to jump start the season just two days from now after a four-month lockout. take a listen. >> the clubs approved an agreement that was negotiated with the players this afternoon in addition to approving that agreement, we also approved a supplemental revenue sharing system for the next ten years. with this ratification and with the ratification of the nfl p.a.

board, we will be prepared to open the training facilities beginning on saturday, this saturday. we will then be prepared to start the new league year next wednesday, subject to the full membership of the players ratifying the agreement, recertifying as a unit. >> all right. well, this is happening this evening, as we told you. joining me from our l.a. bureau, our resident sports expert and cnn contributor max kellerman. max, thanks for being here. roger goodell didn't seem like a ball of fire there, like this was a done deal. it clearly is not at this point. what's going on on the players side? >> they have some broad sense of what's happening. they're very, very close to an agreement. there are a few outstanding issues that need to be resolved, and it seems as though the owners here are trying to put leverage -- trying to put

pressure on the players by coming out publicly. look, we signed our end of the deal. let's go. let's see football public. it's those guys. it's the players. training camp is open. go to training camp. and the reason they're doing that right now, the owners, is for every week of preseason they lose, the owners lose $250 million, something like $20 million per owner. the players get paid very little in the preseason, so there's not the same sense of urgency on the players side. there are three -- several outstanding issues from the players point of view, two of them involve lawsuits, and one of them involves workers comp. >> let me ask you about that preseason. my understanding is that the hall of fame game between the st. louis rams and the chicago bears on august 7th, that's already dead now. that was announced, despite this deal, that's gone. that's bad news for those fans. >> i've also heard -- i've also heard -- my sources tell me that there are higher-ups in the

chicago organization who say we can get a preseason game together in two days. we don't need this deadline six weeks ahead of time. so all this remains to be seen. >> you talk about the preseason. i would guess that one of the other things on the players -- you're saying they're not paid much for preseason games. the owners make a ton of money for it. and a lot of players would say, look, i don't want to get injured in a preseason game. that's not where my bacon is made. any time i can delay that or avoid it, why not? >> sure. i think they would do it -- to take that risk when there are still some outstanding issues. for instance, the brady suit. tom brady and some other high profile players sued the league because the league locked the players out. remember, the players didn't strike. the league locked them out. you can't come to work. these players sued them under this is a violation of antitrust. we really don't have another place to work because the nfl is essentially a monopoly. and tom brady, the patriots quarterback of new england, and

nine other very high profile players joined this suit against the nfl. now as plaintiffs in that case, they all have various interests. many of them would drop the case. maybe some of the agents for some of those players say, wait a machine. you want this to just go away. for instance, logan mankins or vincent jackson, we don't want to be franchised, which is a way for nfl teams to avoid paying their best players as much money as those players would get. we want our clients to be free agents. there's this kind of negotiating and haggling behind the scenes as they're dotting the is and crossing the ts. >> how much danger is there in fans out there saying, at some point, if you keep delaying, you goof around, you cancel the hall of fame game, you mess up the preseason, at what point do you think that fans start saying we're sick of the whole lot of you, the millionaire bosses, the millionaire players. we've seen that happen before in sports. is there a sense among all these folks that they're risking that? >> there was that sense, and then because of various court

decisions, there was pressure on both sides to get a deal done. it looked like the owners didn't have such a great hand as they thought they did. and it looked that way for the players after various court decisions. the bottom line is the nfl is very close to getting a deal done that would give them a ten-year window of labor stability while the nba, whose economy is half the size of the nfl, looks very likely to lose most, if not all of their next season coming off their most successful season in years. so maybe people would get fed up with the nfl if it was the case that there was a lockout. but if they wind up missing a preseason game or two and have a full slate of regular season games and for the next ten years have a collective bargaining agreement that gives them labor stability and you compare that to the nba, i think the nfl is going to come out of this looking really, really good. max kellerman, thank you for