tweet us. please be sure to join us in "the situation room." you can dvr the show so you don't miss a moment. that's it for me. thanks for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." now let's step into the crossfire with stephanie and newt gingrich. >> can they handle the crisis? >> if they can handle the crisis, why isn't president obama going to the border? the debate starts now. >> a irn whias children and protesters head to the border, the president is going to congress and asking for lots of money. >> what is wrong with you! >> on the left, stephanie cutter. on right, newt gingrich. senator ben tacarton, democrat,

and. welcome to "crossfire," i'm newt gingrich on the right. >> i'm stephanie cutter on the left. nearly 10,000 children are coming here every month fleeing violence. a humanitarian crisis and these kids deserve to be treated humanely. we also need to figure out who has legal claims to stay, who must be sent home and how do we stop more kids from making the dangerous journey. today the president asked for $3.7 million to care for the kids and add more border patrol. actually congress can fix this problem. but it'll require many republicans to put aside their politics and on this issue in particular, that's not something that we've seen a lot of. >> well, i think it is

fascinating that the president's answer to this problem is to propose an appropriation larger than the entire border patrol for lasted year. now, this is a problem which can be solved largely by a single fix. because prior to the feinstein amendment being adopted in 2008, the number of people coming across the border, unaccompanied children from those three countries, was somewhere in the 6 to 8,000 a year range. and since that amendment this has gotten worse. in the crossfire, let me ask you, ben, this is say theation where literally, you wouldn't solve all of the immediate and past problems but would you stop the flow by simply repealing the feinstein amendment and going back to the laws that existed in 2008. i mean, don't you think the country, prior before giving another $3.7 billion, the country want to see the stream

of people stopped? >> i think what this nation wants to see is the countries of honduras, el salvador, take care of their own children. parents are putting their children on trains because of the conditions within their country. they are afraid their children will be killed there. newt we spent a couple hundred million a year on development assistance in these countries and now spend billions to take care of the problem of the children being sent to our country. let's make an investment to help these countries deal with their family issues. let's take care of problems in the host country so families aren't sending their children -- >> your position is unless we fix honduras, guatemala and el salvador, unless we can help them, we have the obligation to -- >> no, they are placed in a circumstance where they will be returned to the host country. yes they are entitled to be

cared for, entitled to due process, if they are returned to be returned into a safe environment. that's our humanitarian responsibility. but no, they're not being given an opportunity to come to america. they are desperate. an they are -- their families are making decisions. they are bad decisions. they shouldn't be sending their children here. it is extremely dangerous. >> senator coburn, what about the children already here in by the end of the year protected to be 80,000. we have to learn how to deal with the kids that are already here. half of the money goes towards kids that are already here. >> that's the wrong approach. we can put them all on a first class seat to their homes, that's $8 million. that's a first class seat, one way to each of their homes. >> and skip the -- >> but it's not the process. if you read the foreign relations report, this isn't about violence. some of it is but violence

hasn't changed significantly in two of the three countries and one of them it's less. >> one of them is the murder capital of the world. >> it hasn't changed in the last five years. what changed is the expectation that you can come here and you wouldn't be sent home. if in fact we have a policy, where if you come here, we will feed you, doctor you, and you will come home. if you're not contiguous with us, we will treat you just like you are. you come in, get um immunized, make sure you weren't used as a scapegoat or human trafficked. then we will send you home. here is the real problem. when i talk it average america on this and i with a is in colorado over the fourth with my family, and i had a couple

conversations about this. you know what is in the craw of americans? it is not immigration. they don't see our government enforcing our laws. >>. >> the president is enforcing the law on the books. the law says if kids come across the border of these three countries, border patrol has to take them in and begin the process of deportation. that process takes much longer -- >> that right. but we can change that in two weeks in senate and house. reverse that law retroactively and say -- >> so you get that done? >> i'm all for changing that law. and sending them back. >> are you opposing that money? some of it is for border patrol. >> no, i'm opposing that money because the money will be asked for again next year. >> let me ask you about this whole thing. we will hair with you something governor huckabee said. there an issue of presidential

nonleadership. let's look for a second. he said, for obama to go to texas and spend two days shaking down donors and never getting near the border, would be like flying into new orleans and the highest waters of katrina to eat their creole cooking but never getting near the superdome or the convention center. >> this is not about photo ops or 30-second political ads. this is about humanitarian crisis. i agree, the children who come over here, you're not getting into the united states. you are in deportation. but you're entitled to make sure you're safe. the president's appropriation, is about safety of children and

the process. >> how much does it cost for the president to go to the border? it is taking border patrol agents off the job. they are not projecting the border. hundreds of policemen -- hundreds of local policemen to protect him and negotiation with the mexican government to protect the other side of the border. he is aware of what is going on. he is meeting with governor perry. and you're interested in a photo shop. >> after perry turned down the photo op. >> governor perry was here, you were sitting next to me. governor perry was here, he had not one single solution to this problem. i can't wait to see what he says tomorrow. >> i think he has plenty -- >> he figured it out p? >> that's $60,000 per child we will spend. in emergency money. that shows how incompetence tent

we -- we can't do that for 3 or 4,000 per child? that's number one. number two, if we can't do that, border patrol is as bad as the v.a. and by the way, the vast majority of the border patrol are not patrolling the border right now. they are involved in the humanitarian crisis. >> the money is more than direct health with children. it has to do with border security, proper detention, circumstances in the host country. it is more comprehensive than dealing with the children at the border. >> let me ask you both, frankly, child arrives at the border today. they are allowed in the united states today. they may be put in deportation center and in a lot of cases sent to their relatives. they get on the phone and call back home and saying with i'm fine. i'm in indianapolis. this is terrific. i don't care how many messages we send with paid advertising,

saying, dent come to the u.s. once they are across the border and once in a position to call home and tell all of their friends, this is terrific. >> that's not the circumstance. they are put in a cell that should be for adults. they are put in with a large number of children because of the numbers that are there. yes, we take care of their health needs. if they have a health problem we take care of it. but they are in deportation, in detention. they are not welcomed in -- they can voluntarily agree to be returned home and many are returned home in a very short period of time. >> but they are not actually in deportati deportation. only 1.5% show up for their hearing. >> some voluntarily go. >> okay, so 3%. once they go out of the detention center and to friends or family or relatives, whoever, less than 3% show up for their

hearing. they are in the country, they won't be deported. that is what has people riled. >> tom, i don't think your numbers are right. let's look at the numbers. i think the numbers aren't quite as skewed. >> no-shows on deportation -- >> i think the no-shows are high. but many agree to return home. but and i are in agreement. we don't want people who have come in this way to be rewarded. i agree with you. we want them safe. but they are entitled to certain rights. >> you are insisting a. >> a part of the $3.7 billion? >> i think a fundamentally sound law that needs to been enforced. can we act in a more prompt way? absolutely. should we? absolutely. for the children and for our country. and the signal has to be to those who initiate children here. extremely dangerous and not a light at the end of the tunnel.

>> best signal to slow this down is send them home. >> senator, on the 3.7 billion, you said you weren't going to support it. are you going to actively work against it? try and block it? >> first of all, if we spend 3.7 million, $60,000 per child is way too much money. cut it in half. 30,000 is too much money to care for a child if in a mass grouping and then place them. too much money. aside from that, whatever we have to spend to adequately take care of them, guarantee them the vigor we guarantee anybody, that we guarantee our prisoners, we have plenty of room in the federal budget to pay for it. we don't have to borrow against our children again to pay for it. >> even if they say they don't have enough border patrol, immigration judges -- >> there is more than in 2000.

>> all of your colleagues say that's not enough. to patrol the border. >> they say there is not enough money spent on it. i voted against the immigration bill, not bays i was against the immigration bill but because i was against the money. >> i add mmire you scrutinizing every dollar spent. i thank you for your work. but when we have these unexpected expenditures and they are funded without offsets, budgets are tight today. you have been responsible for making them tight. >> next, we will try and do a premarkably different topic. marijuana. as of today it is legal to buy pot in two states for fun. should it be? how many states legalized medical marijuana? is it the, 17 or 23? we will have the answer when we come back. this is the first power plant in the country

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experiment. whether it is good or bad, you can decide. today the state of washington joined colorado in legalizing recreational marijuana. that makes two states where it's legal for you to buy pot just for fun. and the answer to tonight's quiz, 23 states plus the district of columbia now allow medical marijuana. senators ben carden and ben coburn and tom since you're a medical doctor, i will put you on the spot first. >> okay. >> in your background as a doctor, forget politics, what is your reaction to the experiment with marijuana -- >> i think it will end up a tragedy. i researched this. there's never been a positive study on recreational marijuana. the connection to depression, connection to lack of motivation. there is nothing positive that comes out of it. the second point i'd make is when you smoke a marijuana joint, it is like smoking 18

cigarettes. that's the amount of carcinogens that you intake and so, it's really very harmful to your physiology of your body and very damaging over the long run. there's long-term studies to show what happened. the third point is when you use medical marijuana to smoke it, versus take a pill, we have two prescription drugs that work. and the fourth point i'd make, is marijuana is still a controlled substances. which is raising the irony again that president is not enforcing the law. legally under drug enforcement administration and under the law, states shouldn't be allowing marijuana to be sold because it is a controlled substances. so here we are again, the same issue that i come across is leadership and integrity in the rule of law >> do you think that states shouldn't be allowed to be doing what they're doing?

the federal government should step in? >> i think we should either change our law up here to say it's not a controlled substance or enforce our law. i'm pretty much a state's rights. so i would say the federal government shouldn't be regulating that and the states should be able to do it, but it's still stupid. we're free to be stupid in this country. and it's really stupid in colorado right now. i was in breckinridge this weekend, that's a city that has pot. and boy, could you smell it. >> how about in maryland there has been some reason to deregulate it. >> first of all, i have reason to disagree with what he said about the medical aspects of marijuana. i believe in federalism. i do. let's see what the states are doing. let's see what comes out of the states. that's how we develop national policy by look a litting at the

first. let's do some studies. >> we should either enforce the law or take it off? >> i was under the impression that in regards though these issues that itses a okay. >> it's not. it's illegal under federal law. >> a perfect example of the administration using very, very wide discretion to basically say to people, don't enforce the law. >> i think that they're making -- a decision to go after more dangerous drug crimes using scarce resources. and i think that that, unfortunately, because of budget cuts, some of them good, some of them not so good, those are the decisions -- >> i think the point that if you believe in the tenth amendment, this a great challenge, then states ought to run certain kinds of experiments. >> i think we'll find out a lot. stay here after we took this turn to marijuana, we want you to weigh in on today's fire back question, do you support

legalizing recreational marijuana? text yes or no using the #crossfire. we'll have the results after the break. we'll also have the outrage of the day. newt things the entire country should be paying more attention to the story he's upset about. and rightly so. really... so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 dollars a month? yup. all five of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line anytime for 15 bucks a month. low dues... great terms... let's close. introducing at&t mobile share value plans... ...with our best-ever pricing for business.

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82. 14 of them died. it's really troubling that the country is numb and so indifferent. in 2010 around 80,000 people tried to buy guns even though they were convicted felons or had mental problems. of those 80,000 found by the system, only 44 were prosecuted by the federal government. you know, in any society it's either dangerous to be a criminal or dangerous to be innocent. tragically in chicago it's dangerous to be innocent because we tolerate criminals having guns. >> you know, newt, when you said that this was going to be your outrage of the day -- and i think it's a great outrage. i'm outraged by it, too. i looked on the internet and i found this report by the city of chicago police department from a month ago that says they do have a gun problem but their gun problem is as a result of illegal guns coming across state lines or from the outside county

into the city of chicago because there are lax laws. lack of gun loopholes that allow people to buy guns without a bru background check. i think if there was an effort to strengthen gun laws. >> i'll yield to my friend here because there are 500 gun places in houston, texas, and they have a dramatically lower crime rate. but do you want to comment for a second on this whole confusion? >> i think the point is we're not prosecuting the people that are violating the laws. >> yes. >> it's illegal to carry a gun across the state lines in chicago into illinois. that's illegal. >> it is. >> so how do you enforce that? do you enforce that by taking away somebody's right in indiana to own a gun or do you enforce it by prosecuting the very people that break the law? >> you do it by doing both. i don't think anybody would argue that you would do one over the other. you have to prevent criminals,

gun traffickers from getting guns in indiana and in cook county. right now you can get for a gun dealer you don't have to have any license in illinois. you need a license to have a nail salon but not to be a gun dealer. >> but the federal law says -- >> you have a federal license. >> the thing that's missing, the stat that newt is mentioning, 80,000 criminals tried to buy guns, how many of them actually bought guns? they didn't because the national background check actually stopped them from doing that. so if you want to stop additional criminals, not citizens who have a right to own a gun, we're talking about criminals we have to expand the background checks. >> no one has tried to take guns away from people who are lawfully entitled to own guns. the supreme court has made that pretty clear. those rights are pretty clear. i think we all agree that we want to enforce our laws, but has been pointed out, our current laws have worked to keep those from not entitled to have

guns from owning guns but we can strengthen the laws by dealing with loopholes. >> remember what the u.s. attorney did in richmond in 1996. he started using the federal gun laws -- >> we thank senators ben cardin and my colleague for a couple lively moments there. >> thank you for outrage. the debate continues online. as well as on facebook and twitter. from the left, i'm stephanie cutter. >> i'm newt gingrich. erin burnett "outfront" starts right now. >> next crisis at the border. surge, undocumented immigrants pouring into the united states. even democrats are worried this could become president obama's katrina moment. breaking news, the middle east on the brink of war tonight. israel warning of a ground offensive into gaza, the u.s. embassy has personnel heading to an underground shelter tonight. the israeli ambassador to the united states is out front tonight. one city in america