many worry the results of the vote could put the country one step closer to civil war. i'mly ex d alexandra field. "reliable sources" starts right now. welcome to "reliable sources." i'm brian seltzer, and happy mother's day to all the moms at home. a huge perceived conflict of interest at cbs news. for more than a year now, cbs has been hounded about its coverage of the 2012 consulate attack in benghazi, libya and all its follow-up stories about the attack. many of the complaints bring up this family tie. jason rhodes was involved in writing the talking points that are at the heart of some of the lingering benghazi controversies. in may, an e-mail surfaced, one ben sent after benghazi, saying

the midwest was rooted in an internet video and not in a broader policy failure. the newscast on nbc and abc covered that e-mail and the conservative outcry about it. but cbs did not. they circulated this graphic, made to be shared on facebook and twitter, that implied that the family tie was affecting news decisions. cbs denied that, and the next night the evening newscast there did a long report about benghazi. here's one of the most interesting things about this rhodes relationship. cbs has at times been so aggressive covering benghazi that i've had sources describe it to me as overcompensating. in other words, a network perceived to have gone out of its way to pursue the story, and perhaps to appeal to conservatives and cbs sometimes gets tagged as liberal. but it may be that very zeal

that led to disaster. last fall, larry logan's 60-minute report on benghazi originally cheered by conservatives when it aired fell apart. she's still on leave there. and this spring cheryl attkisson resigned. she talked about them having a cover hype up for months but she had a hard time getting her stories on the air. she declares some managers on the air, not rhodes, but some challenged the obama administration. this week there was a big feature in new york magazine about this, and then it went beyond that looking for problems at cbs news. let's bring in the author of that feature. joe hagan, who is in new york, and jeff greenfield who worked at cbs in the 1980s and again in the 2000s. he was the senior political correspondent there. joe, let me start with you and your reporting from new york

magazine this week. what was at the root of the problems with that story about benghazi? >> well, the problem was they trusted a source who they put on camera with a story that he had about benghazi that fit, more or less, into a conservative narrative about it. it was published by a conservative -- i'm sorry -- the man who was on camera and published a book on a conservative imprint. none of this appeared on camera on "60 minutes." when it turned out his story was false, you know, i think it has since come to light that larry logan was maybe blinded by her own agenda and "60 minutes" didn't check that, that there was a system failure, as it were, at cbs news, in fast checking this piece and checking lara logan. >> you didn't overlap with david

whoe rhodes, who is now the president, but the latest president of cbs news has said it was the biggest mistake there has ever been. has cbs accounted for that mistake? >> one of the most amazing responses to me was the lack of an independent outside review. ten years ago when a question was raised about a dan rather report of george w. bush maybe having political views to get him into the air national guard, they had them do an independent review. when i was at cnn and we stumbled through "tail wind," that story about nerve gas, cnn brought in george abrams. in this case they trusted a really good guy there to review this story. what that meant was he was reviewing the work of chuck

fager and then introducing to the chairman of the news chuck fager. there is no transparency there. there is no guarantee of independence. and that raised some real questions to me. >> jeff, is this relationship between david rhodes and ben rhodes, is this a real conflict of interest or just a perceived conflict of interest? >> i think it's more perceived. as i say, if david rhodes was being influenced by ben rhodes, the benghazi piece we've been talking about would never have aired because it shed bad light on the obama administration had it been true. but in my first days at cbs back in the '80s when i was doing kind of what you do, i've seen this over and over again where it's almost impossible to separate media criticism from public criticism. i rarely, if ever, saw a case where a conservative said that was a tough piece cbs did about

conservatives, but it taught me something. or a liberal saying, that was uncomfortable news for me to hear, but that was good reporting. people bring their political believes into conflicts, about accuracy of the story, to a point where it's almost impossible to separate those two points. >> and joe, in your piece, there is a sense of low morale at cbs. is that because there hasn't been a full accounting of what happened? >> it's that, and it's also that there is a lot of resentment around lara logan. frankly, a lot of her coworkers there, you know, felt she had too much power. there's some kind of competitive grousing, of course, but they also felt like she tarnished the "60 minutes" and that she should leave. now, i don't know if that's going to happen, but it did -- her error created a lot of resentment inside the network, and i don't think jeff fager has fully dealt with that. and that's why it's still there.

a lot of people at the network talk to me. there was a lot of anger, there was a lot of -- and it was directed not just towards lara logan but toward jeff fager for not addressing this in a way they felt he should. >> do you sense any self-consciousness in cbs about this relationship, this brotherly connection, or did you pick up on that at all? >> i didn't, though i did report that lara logan had a sort of infamous speech that she gave in october 2012 in which she made her opinions known about american foreign policy and supposed lies that were being prop agated by the obama administration. david rhodes was in the audience when she said those things and helped with the speech. so there was awareness of their star reporter's political bent a year before her report. i never saw any evidence,

really, that the rhodes brothers were -- i think they probably were quite fastidious about this because all eyes were on that. >> we did ask david rhodes to come on the program and they politely declined on his behalf. steve provides extensive and often groundbreaking coverage of benghazi from the beginning, informed by correspondents in the field and in washington. david and his brother have taken great care to avoid conflicts of interest for many years, since david was at fox news and his brother was at the 9/11 commission. david, given the fact you've spent so many decades in tv n s tv newsrooms. have you seen this? >> yeah, it's quite unlikely that people are going to be

friends with or spouses with people in decision-making roles. the key to this, to me -- i'm very old school about this, brian -- is show me what you're talking about. when i was at cnn, the president of the news division or the president of cnn america, rick kaplan, was an old friend of the clintons. i was doing the lewinsky and piecemeal stuff. i never got a hint that we were supposed to trim that story one way or another because of that relationship. >> but joe, what should cbs do about that perceived news story? how can they show there was no bias here? >> i don't know what they can do. they can be open about it and also be diligent about covering everything in as balanced a way as possible and obviously not shrink away from critical reportage. the "60 minutes" report we're talking about, the lara logan piece of last year, would not lead you to believe they were trying to hold their powder on

this. now, though, it's even more complicated by the fact that they're perceived as having tried to do something that came out to be looking like a political head job on the administration, and on the other hand, they have the brother, and people think they're going to give him too much leeway. so in a way -- in a weird way it's already fair and balanced. >> that's what cbs would say. cbs would say we're getting hit from the left, and on the right we're doing our job and this is proof of that. on the subject of benghazi, i was persuaded by a piece on vox.com talking about why people do or do not buy into conspiracy theories. it talked about why benghazi is a response for this, because the fact there was some cover-up in the white house makes it hard to believe that theory because then you are a member of the group. >> i've seen this over and over again. this is just the latest example.

it isn't to say that the administration can't be faulted for spinning the story for trying to make it look good politically. that's a perfectly legitimate source of inquiry. but if you link it to a field theory of conspiracy that you know is true because of your general political beliefs, you're not necessarily going to get the best kind of information out of it. >> jeff greenfield, joe hagen, thank you both for joining me. >> thank you. one more word about cbs before we go. this week the network hired steve caplis to produce the news division starting in july. i have lots of things for you, including the monica lewinsky media coverage. up next congressman marq rogers.

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welcome back to "reliable sources" how bad a place is congress to work? let me ask that again. how bad a place is congress to work that one influential representative is packing it in to become, of all things, a member of the media. as chairman of the house subcommittee, marq rogers is ever present across the talk show landscape. he gets quizzed on everything from the drone in yemen to mass programs. but he has decided not to seek an eighth term. he is trading his access in the clandestine world to one of public radio host. he'll be joining radio stars like mike levin, michael savage. i've been wanting to talk to him about his decision ever since it was announced, and i recently had the chance to meet him in

washington and ask, why radio? and why now? congressman, thank you for joining me. >> thanks for having me. >> tell me why you decide that had radio was the next step for you. >> it wasn't something i was looking for. as chairman of the house committee, it was a huge responsibility. all the budgeting, all the oversight, all the policy work, all the realtime checkoffs that we participate in and covert action in other programs. i've had a six-year term. this will be my fourth year. been on the committee for ten years, and somebody came to me and said, hey, have you ever thought about radio in order to maybe better broadcast out the kind of things you think are important? it got me thinking and it got me to a point, and i think what won it for me was when they said, listen, we don't want a radio talk show host, we want a guy with your experience talking about the things that you believe are important on the radio. that sold it for me. that, i think, really made it interesting for me in this option to talk to literally millions of people every week

across the country. >> doesn't your job right now, though, give you that same ability? >> i have a lot of influence in the one lane that i have, which is this intelligence lane as chairman of the intelligence committee, and then i do a lot of speaking on foreign affairs and public policy and foreign policy. and so i have that lane, certainly that authority. but i'm very worried about the isolationism that's creeping into my party, the republican party and that exists in the democrat party. we have tried this in america before. it's always ended up badly for us. and i don't see a counterweight out there in a national daily dialogue on why that's a bad idea and why americans' prosperity is really tied to a robust engagement policy around the world. and i think they've given me a forum to have that conversation in a way i can't do it today. >> whenever policy moves the private sector, i wonder if it says more about the congress or the private sector. where does it come down for you?

>> probably both. certainly the pay is better in the private sector. it was a factor, not the factor. congress can be an incredibly frustrating place. >> that's what i wonder, if you just felt you couldn't make change anymore. >> i've worked in a bipartisan way on our committee, i worked real closely with our ranking member from maryland. we worked very well together on major national security issues in that committee. and, unfortunately, it's a rare thing in congress. i'm a conservative guy, but i'm a reagan republican. i believe if you can get 80%, take it. get up the next day and fight for the other 20%. that notion seems to be missing from congress today. >> i bet people have asked you since you announced you were retiring and going to radio, are you viewing yourself as the next rush limbaugh, the next sean hannity? is there a comparison there? >> i don't think so. i'm not trying to compete with rush limbaugh or sean hannity or michael savage. they have their own schtick, and

it's worked well for them. they have loyal listeners. i'm not trying to take lynners from everybody. radio is growing every year. people keep saying, radio is dead, it's going to go away. radio has actually been growing every single year. and i think there are lots of viewers out there looking for something that's a little more engaging, a little more challenging, learn a little something when i turn off the radio, and that this just isn't there today, they're not meeting that demand. i think they'll continue to prosper in radio, and i think this is a way for me to find this new niche that will also allow me in that kind of message to prosper in radio. >> you talk about the ratings. some individual programs seem to have had a very hard time, though, even though the medium is healthier than it's perceived to be. mike huckabee was a host, it did not perform well in the ratings. that show has ended. what is taken away from programs like that, like his, for example? >> there are lots of people who want to try to fill that void of

going after that segment of radio listeners. >> yeah. yeah. >> rush limbaugh is the king of it. 16 million listeners a week. nobody is going to touch that. sean hannity has a really healthy relationship every week. people are going to try to emulate those shows and compete head to head with them on the very same kind of show. i'm not going to do that. my show is not going to look like lee hours of monologue that rush limbaugh can do. nobody pulls that off like rush limbaugh. >> did you hear what bill had to say when he heard? he said it makes perfect sense because the gop has become talk radio. he calls it an echo chamber where people are not necessarily interested in fixing america but screaming about how liberals have ruined it. why not do it on the radio, the money is better. >> what's your reaction to bill maher. >> bill maher has that schtick.

i think he's wrong on so many things. but the interesting thing about that is that my list of accomplishments is long. this is my 20th year of elected office. and i think we have moved the needle on a lot of issues, everything from cybersecurity and some health care stuff i worked on to server farm efficiency, believe it or not. all of those things i've been able to get done. so at some point in your career -- and i believe in a civil legislature -- i had to make the determination can i have a broader impact by talking to more people than i can talk to as chairman of the house intelligence committee? i believe -- and that's why i disagree with him so passionately, and by a guy, by the way, who engages in politics using tv as a way to do that, that radio was a way to have that discussion. i understand, i think, what he's trying to say which is don't turn off his show and turn on somebody else's.

i think that's what it was. in this case all of it added up. my frustration was i had a fairly difficult two years in order to get anything done, and i think the environment in congress is sour a little bit that way, unfortunately so. i think it's an important institution. can i help that institution? can i help formulate and give people information so they can come to a conclusion about where they ought to be on certain issues? because only me sssages i hear t there, especially on talk radio, is isolationism bent, and if you don't get 100% of what you want, you're not really a conservative and go home. i think all that is wrong. i think as a conservative, we have lost -- there's certain programs we wanted to reform, but because we had a strong group that said if we don't get 100%, then we want nothing, and guess what we ended up getting? nothing. i argue that we left lots of savings on the table because of that attitude. meaning we could have done so much to reform government, get

spending under control, reform some of these programs, but you can't do it if you're not working as a team. >> but does the talk radio audience want to hear that? >> i think they do, because remember, a lot of people have the other mess age. >> i think they tried with geraldo and huckabee. >> this is a different style. i'm not telling you it's going to be wildly popular, i think there is an interest. from all the people i've talked to anecdotally, people are ready for this. >> and cuomo thinks so, too. >> i'm taking a bet, and i'm taking the bet with them. i'm betting it's going to work, and it has to be entertaining, it has to be compelling. controversy works. smart let me give a great example. the nsa is a substantive conversation. what is the status of american surveillance? now, on a lot of talk radio, i

hear absolutely incorrect information. it works great, people love it, they call in and say, yeah, the government is spying on me. i happen to be the guy who knows the answers to those questions. i'm going to challenge the listeners, they're going to challenge me. i'm going to bring in guests who know those answers. to me that's smart controversy. coming up next, a cinco de mayo controversy. we'll look at how two television countries marked the 5th of may and ask, what the hell were they thinking? (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern.

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cinco de mayo. spanish for the 5th of may. and in parts of mexico it's a holiday to commemorate victory and battle. but this year, it was an ugly reminder that in the year of stereotyping, that war is still being waged. >> sink cinco de mayo. there you go. you got your go-go juice. >> it commemorates mexico and pride and it commemorates the battle forces in pueblo in 1862. it's also an excuse to drink at the khe-- tequila on a monday morning for lawrence. >> unfortunately, this wasn't much better. >> this is known as cinco de drinko!

>> wow. >> don't you think of pee wee herman? >> it's a cute hat, but come on. latinos are a diverse group, but together they're the largest minority group in the united states, making up about 17% of the population. joining me now is maria salinas. thanks for joining me. >> nice to be here, brian. >> the nbc one, especially, got a lot of attention on the internet. they were circulated widely. tell me what you think about those clips? >> i don't think it's necessarily insulting, but the particular lack of this holiday, if you can call it a holiday, and the lack of understanding of mechanics cxican culture. it is the day they celebrate the triumph of the ill-equipped army over the french army in the city of pueblo. but this is not celebrated in all of mexico, it's only

celebrated in the city of wela. it has become an american holiday with americans drinking and portraying mexicans as they perceive them. >> this, nbc apologized on air. were you struck by the apologies? did they say enough? >> i don't think it was meant to insult, but as a journalist, if you want to be accurate, then you have to be completely accurate. not only with the holiday and the date of the holiday, but first of all, you perpetuate the stereotype of that picture of the mexican taking a see he ies under a tree with a sombrero and that is not necessarily what mexicans are all about. >> let me read a letter written on wednesday. he said, one of the most

rewarding comments i received was by a general manager of msnbc segment who said he used it as a learning tool with his staff. he played the video and had a candid discussion about how to avoid such mistakes and the importance of being cognizant in their daily work. not only to the staffers who viewed that letter, but also to the viewers at home, it's a learning experience. >> that was particularly delicate, especially when you say let's start the morning at 7:00 drinking a tequila with the hat. the message there could be that this is what mexicans do, they take a shot of tequila early in the morning. >> i'm curious how you cover other areas like race and ethnicity. there's been issues like racial issues in the media, the donald sterling story. have you given lots of attention to the donald sterling story, for example? >> we have. when we talk about racism, we talk about racism across the

board not only against hispanics but also against african-americans. in the sterling case there was also a touch of discrimination against latinos as we know he had been fined before as a landlord for not allowing latinos and african-americans to live there, or at least suggesting that they not be rented in some of his buildings. but one thing that's important, i know that we have been accused in the past of being biased, we have been accused of doing advocacy journalism because we do give the point of view of immigrants, and the way that i see it, it's actually adding to a dialogue in this country, otherwise it becomes a monologue where you accuse immigrants of all the ills in this country in a very negative light. >> i love the phrase you used, dialogue, not monologue. maria, thanks for joining me. >> it was my pleasure. i think your feedback makes this program better all the time, so please look me up on

twitter, on facebook. my user name is brian seltzer and i'd love to see what you want covered in the future. on the other side of the break, a story that affects all of us: climate change. does the media do a disservice by downplaying the dangers instead of owning up to what's happening on this planet we all share? those are the questions, next. a. during the day, we generate as much electricity as we can using solar. at night and when it's cloudy, we use more natural gas. this ensures we can produce clean electricity whenever our customers need it. ♪

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storms, longer droughts, deeper floods. we've talked about how there is a pretty reliable consensus on this ish this issue, but some big shots said this is all just a political ploy. rush limbaugh said, there isn't a single issue they can run on. everything they have done has blown up on them. some fox news commentators this week continued to cast doubt on the science. >> the idea that we have trouble forecasting what's going to happen saturday on the climate could pretend to be predicting what's going to happen in 30, 40 years is absurd. >> scientists are not wearing white laboratory smocks. they have interests like everyone else. if you want a ten-year on

academia, don't question it. >> more about fox in a moment, but now over to the blue news. on msnbc, which lieeans to the left, they were telling a different story. they said they were experiencing climate change today. i saw one interview with a pro snowboarder who is less worried about winters. and those who tried not to be red or blue, they did the same thing. cbs, cnbc, this network. all of them had their opinions about the sources. >> stronger heat, floods, fires, torrential downpours and droughts. >> is this extreme weather all around us global warming or not? the president's answer is yes. >> a new study says climate change is being felt today in all 50 states. >> it's not about if or when, but the point of this report is

to show it's happening here and now. >> i thought cbs was particularly impressive. they had three reports back to back about climate change and extreme weather. the liberal website think progress tracked coverage on this story on tuesday. that's the day the report came out, and here's the draft they produced about climate mentions. the new kid on this block covered the most time on it, followed by this network, msnbc and at the bottom, fox news. coming up, another story that came out of the very same hour as that climate change report. it was vanity fair's essay by monica lewinsky. yes, monica is back, and i have the best two guests to talk about it. they'll join me on the other side of this break. stay tuned. when possibilities become reality. with centurylink as your trusted partner, our visionary cloud infrastructure

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built for business. welcome back to "reliable sources." i'm brian seltzer. here is my personal favorite line from monica lewinsky's much dissected news essay. it may actually surprise you to learn i'm actually a person. that struck me as powerful, because for many of us, monica lewinsky is not so much a person as she is a media impersonation. it was perhaps the most viral phenomenon before we started using words like viral. they rose to providence with scoop after scoop. meanwhile the story dominated newspaper and computer news. they wrote column after column on monica and bill and won a

pulitzer prize for them. and of course, cnn was all over the story. >> with monica lewinsky ready to tell her side of the story, the president's presidency hangs on whether or not he's telling the truth. >> this week it sort of felt like we were reliving those days, rehashing the 1990s and not always happily. the media pounced when vanity fair published lewinsky's essay on tuesday, no surprise since she's been silent for so many years, and hillary clinton is at the center of a 24-hour media frenzy about whether or not she'll run for president. then the frenzy turns back to monica all these years later. what's different about how the media is treating her now? and what does it tell us about how much the media has changed since this story broke? melanie wolf, a best-selling writer on women's issues, and jeffrey toobin wrote a book about the lewinsky scandal. it was titled "the vast

conspiracy: the real story about the sex story that almost brought down a president." melanie, let's talk to you and about how the tone of the media has changed over the years. amanda hess did a good job of recounting this earlier in the week. quotes like stalker, ditzy, predatory. i thought the coverage overall was more conservative than it was in the 1990s. was that your thought as well? >> there was nothing like misogeny aimed at this 21-year-old woman in the 1990s and that's because the president was the most powerful man in the world and his supporters, and this young woman with her story that could easily be cast as this destructive being. to me that's not what's most important, and certainly the

coverage is much more benign now toward miss lewinsky. she's a grown-up, and it's always better, any pr consultant will tell you and campaign consultant will tell you to get ahead of the story and put it in your own words. the president had the chance to stand in front of the most powerful pulpit in the world again and again and spin the story the way he and his lawyers wanted to spin it, and this young woman was silent for complicated reasons i don't fully understand. and now she's speaking. that's smart, it's sympathetic. >> jeff, this is a viral story, something we now called a viral story. do you think that played into it in the '90s? was it bigger than it otherwise would have been? >> all of our modems were dial-up at the time so nothing could go around very fast at the time. you had to hear that kkk noise. >> you're bringing me back. >> yes, it had some similarities to what we call a viral story. but i think today the story is really drained of a lot of its political content.

monica lewinsky is 40 years old, and frankly, hasn't had a very happy life, it sounds like. and i think all of us, just at a simply human level, feel bad about that. she made a mistake, got involved in an inappropriate relationship in her early 20s and she's paid a very heavy price. as for the politics of it, it just doesn't seem all that politically significant anymore. no one really wants to talk about it in political terms. the democrats, you know, the whole thing was just terribly embarrassing for the clintons. the republicans turned it into a fiasco of impeachment. and it's really more of a curiosity now, i think, than an event with political significance. >> finally, naomi, you worked as a political consultant in the past. how would you advise hillary clinton now to handle the emergence of monica? >> i think she should handle it graciously and always pivot. it's called hit, bridge, sparkle. you hit the issue, you bridge

with what you want to talk about and you sparkle with what her agenda is for the future ahead. >> oh, i can guarantee you that's not what she's going to do. she's going to say absolutely nothing. i don't see any reason why hillary clinton needs to get involved in this. hillary clinton, you know, is or is not going to run for president, but talking about monica lewinsky will not be part of the plan, regardless of what she does. >> it wasn't part of the plan then, which is why this story went on and on and on and on. this has always been mrs. clinton's weakness. >> do you think if hillary clinton had give an press conference about monica lewinsky, it would have tamped down the story? >> do you want me to answer the question? >> absolutely. >> i think if she had had a press conference and spoken from her heart as a human being, acknowledging that this was a painful and difficult situation, obviously, as any husband or wife in this situation would find and that what she really

wanted was to focus on her family and to grieve in private and to sort of put the pieces together and acknowledge the difficulty of what she was going through, people would have put the story behind them much, much sooner. >> the what might have beens, the other scenarios of how this could have ended up is one of the reasons why this story remains so fascinating to people. naomi and jeff, thank you both for joining me. >> thank you. i do wonder what's next for monica. i wonder if we'll be seeing a tv interview or some other media presence from her to come. after the break here, the one media star who will be making big news this week. don't go away. i am totally blind.

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but i learned to live with my blindness a long time ago. so i don't let my blindness get in the way of doing the things i love. but sometimes it feels like my body doesn't know the difference between day and night. i struggle to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day. i found out this is called non-24, a circadian rhythm disorder that affects up to 70 percent of people who are totally blind. talk to your doctor about your symptoms, and learn about the link between non-24 and blindness by calling 844-824-2424. that's 844-824-2424 or visit your24info.com today. don't let non-24 get in the way of your pursuit of happiness.

that corporate trial by fire when every slacker gets his due. and yet, there's someone around the office who hasn't had a performance review in a while. someone whose poor performance is slowing down the entire organization. i'm looking at you phone company dsl.

check your speed. see how fast your internet can be. switch now and add voice and tv for $34.90. comcast business built for business. finally this morning, a look at what's going to be big media news in the week ahead. the tv network upfronts are coming to foun. these are annual rituals where the networks woo advertisers and get them to fork over lots of money for their shows, sewell be hearing all the comedies and dramas coming to prime time. there will abe lot of parties, but really the biggest party won't be on what's new. it will be for someone who has stood the test of time: barbara walters. this is walters' final week on "the view," the program she

started in 1997. she is retiring from tv after six decades on the air. she will continue to donate to the news every once in a while. you'll hear and see stories about her blazing career. let me recommend one for your reading. it's in vanity fair. a writer worked on a profile of walters for months. i remember seeing her taping of "the view" last august. i guess that's the beauty of long lead times in magazines. here's what she wrote in the profile. the ultimate compliment to walters is once you start watching her, it's hard to stop. fundamentally, isn't that the true test of successful television? there's something to think about as the networks introduce dozens of new tv shows this week, most of which will fail that test. well, that's all for this televised edition of "reliable sources." but our media coverage continues seven days a week on our blog,

so check us out on line. we'll see you next week, sunday. if you can't watch, set your dvr. i can't tell you who i have booked next week, but i can tell you the person is definitely dvr worthy. stay tuned for a news update from cnn headquarters and then an update from candy crowley. hello, i'm alexandra field. here are the big stories we're following this hour. crews are looking for a third person missing after a hot air balloon burned and crashed last friday. two bodies have been found. two of the people on board were virginia doyle and natalie lewis who worked with the school's basketball program. the ntsb has been called in to help investigate what went wrong. people in orick, missouri are helping clean up after an apparent tornado last night. the state patrol says no one was

damaged. 80% of the town was one woman says it looked like a bomb went off. they had ten minutes to find shelter before the storm hit. the strong winds blew several roofs off a home and a school and brought up several trees. in eastern ukraine people cast ballots on whether to claim independence from ukraine. they hastened the referendum which other nations called illegitimate. they saw several people voting twice at one polling station. many worry that the result of the vote could push the country one step closer to civil war. "the state of the union" with candy crowley starts right now. benghazi, health care and monica lewinsky. a trio of headlines moving the media in election year. today getting to the facts on benghazi or exploiting it for politics? >> we will not take any shortcuts to the truth, accountability or justice.

>> this is a stunt. this is a political stunt. house democrats ponder a boycott of the new benghazi committee and fresh cnn poll numbers show a healthy majority of americans do not want to repeal obamacare looking at it all through a prism of election year. then who thinks the minimum wage should be raised that republicans don't care as much about democrats and that ron paul doesn't stand a chance in the republican party. >> it is a conservative party. >> rick santorum joins us for party talk. plus -- >> his 43% approval rating isn't exactly inspirational. the 2014 challenge for democrats. and a blast from the past, monica lewinsky at 40 and talking. our panel takes it on. and balancing it all: work, home,