the former president has been credited with creating a new bushism. >> we were inyundated. >> oh, for the days when we were inyundated with bushisms. >> so my conscience is clear. >> maybe the media should be more conscientious. jeanne moos, cnn -- >> i poisoned dorothy's goldfish by pouring vodka in the fish bowl. >> -- new york. >> that's it for me. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." "john king usa" starts right now. >> thanks, wolf. good evening, everywhere. tonight, the republican in line to be next speaker in the house says he will pass on one of the powerful perks of that office, an air force jet to shuttle him home on weekends. also, a woman making history. susanna martinez will be new mexico's first women chief executive and the nation's first latina governor. is tough on border security but says the immigration law goes

too far. a new report that is chilling. western intelligence sources telling us al qaeda is planning mumb mumbai-style terror attacks in europe and perhaps here in the united states. that developing story in just a moment. first, a defining post-election challenge with huge implications for your bottom line. consider this sober headline -- quote, the problem is real. the solution is real. the painful solution will test whether your government, democrats and republicans, is serious about an issue that was just front and center in so many midterm campaigns. the bold shrink the debt proposal comes from a chairman of a commission created by the president. >> it's all there. we have harpooned every whale in the ocean. >> here's just a few of the harpoons. deep cuts in domestic and military spending. a major overhaul of the tax code that would cut rates for many americans that would limit popular deductions like mortgage

interest on loans over $500,000. tax revenues would increase by about $80 billion by 2015. even as they lecture about deficits, many republicans have vowed no new taxes. you might call these blue flags, numbers one and two. the plan would slow the growth of medicare and make a number of changes to social security, including raising the retirement age and trimming future benefits for upper income americans. some greeted those ideas with though label, dead on arrival. can this huge challenge be addressed when the partisans run for their quarters before the ink is dry on this proposal? let's debate with our guests. the afl-cio was quick to condemn the proposal. ed henry is traveling with the president tonight in seoul, south korea. ed, the president wanted this commission. he appointed its leader. is he prepared now to fight for the evocative proposals unveiled by these chairmen today?

>> reporter: well, john, the early signs are maybe not because it's a very cautious reaction from the white house saying look, these are just preliminary, we want to see the final report. that's coming in part, that caution, because as you've noted, you've got top democrats like nancy pelosi saying look, this may be dead on arrival, really lashing out on changes to social security, et cetera. but on the other hand, one reason why i think this president may fight for these proposals in the end is i'm picking up information from top white house aides that in private this president has been saying since the election and even before it that, basically, he wants to call the tea party's bluff. they talked a lot about spending cults. john boehner as well. the incoming speaker. they're going to cut spending. and the president is basically telling his advisers maybe he'll go all ross perot on people, maybe bring out some charts and say, look, unless you come up with these cuts, we're not going to turn this around. and so try to force the republicans to get specific about these cuts after riding to power by just generally saying

they were going to cut spending, john. >> how much does this whole concern about deficit spending and red ink -- of course it's a big domestic issue, but how much does it factor -- the president is in seoul for the economic summit. how much does the president face criticism from his fellow world leaders, well, don't lecture us when your fiscal house back home is a mess? >> reporter: you're right, it's huge. because i remember the first g-20 with this president in london early 2009, he was sort of greeted like a rock star by the other leaders. and he also was all about stimulus, spending money. let's stave off another great depression. much different scene here in seoul. it's all about trying to rein in debt. this president, obviously, nowhere near a rock star. in a much different political standing. and you've got other leaders like british prime minister david cameron, he's gotten specific. he's putting osterity measures on the table. so there's pressure on this

president to come up with specifics. maybe he can use this commission's early findings to show look this is my commission, i appointed it, we're going to get tough on spending and reining in debt. on the other hand, since they've been very cautious so far, it's unclear whether the president's really going to get behind this. so he's going to have to get more specific. i anticipate he will at the next news conference where one of my colleagues, if not myself, will ask that very question, john. >> we look forward to that. that is midnight eastern time. you can catch the president's news conference if you're staying up late. here's the document. it's a serious document. if you go through this, it has -- i'll start with the right. it has a number. it combines agencies. it cuts funding to the united nations. it makes the smithsonian stop giving free admission. it cuts funding for the corporation for public broadcasting. eliminates a lot of things. a serious document. and you rule it out from the start. why? >> well, for the last two years, obama's done nothing but spend.

so has pelosi and reid. the idea now they're going to come back and explain they really want to reduce spending is sort of silly. they could have done everything there. >> you're a conservative who didn't like spending under the bush administration either. >> correct. >> at some point the political leadership of the country needs to say we have all sinned in the past, all of us. why don't we start today and go forward? otherwise, we'll be having this conversation in 20 years and you'll need a report that's ten times as thick. >> but if obama, reid or pelosi wanted to rein in spending they could have avoided making the expensive mistake of the last two years. step one is undue the damage of the last two years. we could save $1 trillion simply by eliminating the spending explosion that obama put into domestic discretionary. they don't even do that in this commission. they don't even step back from the disaster from 2008 on. that's $1 trillion off the table. no deep cuts. just don't do all the massive spending that obama's tried to talk us into. >> but can you get to the

point -- can you get to the point this doesn't even eliminate the deficit, it just shrinks it substantially -- >> okay. >> and they make the argument, the leaders do, allen sensen does, that you can cut all the discretionary spending, but if you don't put some revenue on the table, you don't get there. are you willing to put some revenue on the table? >> no, because the problem isn't the deficit, the problem is the spending. what this commission is trying to do is increase taxes by about $1 trillion in order to pay for obama's spending spree. that's not what the tea party wanted. that's not what the last election was about. it is to undue the spending spree of obama, which as bad as bush was, he was a piker compared to what obama or even pelosi has done to us in the last two years. >> from right, no. from the left, i have the statements here, liberals who sit on this commission's statement here, all saying no, it's unacceptable. >> that's correct. this commission report is dead on arrival. it's a nonstarter in terms of

addressing the problems we need to have. we are right in the middle of an economic recession. we have 9.6% unemployment. the last thing we need to do right now is to cut spending in a deep way. and to slash social security and medicare. and basically to put the burden of adjustment on working families and senior citizens. wall street threw themselves a party. they gave themselves huge tax cult cuts. they were irresponsible. financial excesses. now they're asking working people to pay the price. the problem with this report is not that it closes the deficit. it's a good thing to do over the longer term, to figure out how we can be more fiscally responsible. tax increases on the wealthy will have to be an important part of that. >> i want you to listen to allen sensen because he essentially listens to your argument about social security and medicare. he says simply, you can't be serious. >> they've said, wait a minute, don't touch social security, wait a minute, don't touch medicare, we just bled through

the ears on that one. wait a minute, don't touch -- you cannot get there -- let's just be, everyone surely must hear, that you can't get there unless you do constructive things that are not punitive with medicare, medicaid and social security. >> did you agree with this statement? essentially, your position that you can't get to a path to a balanced budget because you will fight any politician who touches social security or medicare? >> you absolutely can get to a balanced budget without slashing benefits to seniors. people have paid into this program for their whole lives. social security and medicare didn't cause the problem. and they're not going to solve the problem. so you can, you know, restore the tax cuts, the bush tax cuts on the wealthy, that gets you $700 billion over ten years. you can do a financial transactions tax. you do need to rein in health care spending. but that's different from saying we need to cut medicare and social security -- >> the idea of this commission, we should be very clear, this draft is from the leaders, nome

not the economic. the deal was if 14 of the 18 members of commission voted in favor of a plan, and they could debate this and amend this, maybe. i don't think it's going to happen. the idea would be if they got 14 of the 18, speaker pelosi and reid agreed this year to put it to an up and down vote. that looks almost impossible. will the republicans pick this up in the house? they have to write a budget. they have to work with the president. will they look at the cults here, if they won't look at the taxes? >> i think some of the cuts you night well look at. the idea of raising taxes, raising taxes is what politicians do when they don't have the guts to govern. when they're not like the governor christie in new jersey, willing to rein in spending. >> people around clinton would tell you had george h.w. bush not called everybody out to camp david and raised taxing a little bit, they would have had a much more difficult path getting to the last balanced budget. >> if george h.w. bush had not

taken everyone out to that meeting where they raised taxes, clinton would have never been elected. >> it's not all spending, that's just ridiculous. >> it is all spending, absolutely. >> the economy's in a recession. you have maybe a her pert hoover-style proposal, to cut spending in the middle of a recessi recession. >> excuse me, i went to public school but i know herbert hoover exploded spending. nothing fdr wasn't a stupid idea that hoover hadn't tried first. he had the top tax rate on the rich. spent a lot of money. had all sorts of subsidy programs. fdr just continued hoover's policies. which is why the recession lasted ten year. the first recession, the federal government ever tried to fix. the dangerous here is that obama's doing exactly what hoover and fdr did, which was spend. that's what gives you a depression. >> i'm going to call a time-out on this conversation but i promise you as this gets debated and we can see the debate has begun, we'll bring you both back in. i want to quickly bring in our

senior analyst david gergen. will you listen to a conversation like this, the left and the right essentially saying before the ink is dry, no way, dead on arrival, do you have any confidence at all that spending and deficits was a huge concern, that the leadership in washington is prepared to have a grown-up conversation about how to deal with it? >> i have -- john, i have hope but not confidence. i think that last conversation where people continue to be dug in, in the face of massive deficit this country is running up, country on the road to bankruptcy. people can't get out of their sand boxes to get serious about this and to say, look, we've all got to come together and be statesmen and figure out a constructive solution to this. we'll condemn this country to second-class status. we're already worried about the decline. they will put us there if they don't come to grips with the facts we have these huge deficits. what alan simpson and the other chairman have proposed is that we balance the budget at 21% of gdp for taxes and 21% for

spending. that's what we did when bolls was chief of staff to clinton and negotiated wi ed witd with beginni gingrich. you remember, when that first balanced budget was acleaved, it was exactly 21%, and we had three balanced budgets in a row. we had greeat prosperity and jos in this country. we'll have to do both. now, the fact is, we've got deficits over the next ten years of $10 trillion. $10 trillion. this deficit commission is only proposing that we cut $4 trillion out of the $10 trillion. we're still going to have big deficits. at least it gets us on the road to sanity. if we can't do four, you know, we -- just count on it, we will be second class country -- >> david gergen, i'm going to stop you there. they're head shaking in the room here. we have to move on, but there's an interesting debate starting. maybe we can walk through the substance in the days ahead. next, new alarming information that at least one of the cargo

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two chilling developments today in the fight against global terrorism. counterterrorism officials in europe and the united states are telling cnn al qaeda is still planning mumbai-style attacks in europe and possibly here in the united states. also today, scotland yard says its analysis of the package bomb sent from yemen last month and intercepted near london shows it probably would have exploded over the eastern u.s. seaboard. joining me from new york, still with us, former presidential adviser david gergen and cnn terrorism analyst paul crookshea. start with your reporting, first with the idea that the package coming to the united states was somehow a timer-based, cell phone timer-based to have it explode over the eastern seaboard? >> that's right. and they may have done a dry run back in mid-september to try and figure out when exactly to time the device. this was timed -- the british are saying -- to explode over the u.s. eastern seaboard. that's the most densely, heavily

populated area in the united states. there have could been dozens, perhaps hundreds of casualties on the ground. a lot of concern about what they were planning. the more people killed, the more prestige for the group, al qaeda. it's a very good write-in cry for them if they had succeeded, john. >> separately, this reporting about the planning by al qaeda of mumbai-style attacks, essentially gunmen going to places like hotels, where you have a large segment of the population, what are your sources telling you? >> we understand that al qaeda also are not only planning that in europe but also in the united states. a lot of concern about this, united states seen as very vulnerable to this. it's quite easy to buy weapons if you get operatives into the united states. a lot of concern what played out in mumbai november 2008 could one day perhaps play out in the united states. al qaeda are planning this. one of their senior operatives, ilyas kashmiri, a very dangerous man, is planning this. a lot of concern at the moment that these plots could be imminent in europe in the next

weeks and at some point it could happen in the united states. >> when you hear a chilling assessment like that, chilling account from intelligence officials about continued planning of a horrific hotel-style attack like mumbai, a, what goes through your head? b should our government -- this is obviously sensitive information, classified information, but should the people be getting more of a warning about this, more of an education about this? >> well, john, we went through that whole code yellow, code red -- i think most people thought it was a joke and stopped paying attention. i think this kind of reporting is actually very, very helpful. because it tells people, look, you've got to be vigilant, but don't be scared. we can go about our lives. it's unlikely this is going to happen. after all, we are now talking about gun attacks, not nuclear attacks or gas attacks or chemical attacks. someone with a gun is not going to get that many people. but we -- so we have to be careful, watch out for strange people, watch out for strange things. but nonetheless, i don't think this is the kind of thing that -- it's like the -- you

know, fortunately we got away from those color warnings. i think we're living a much more sensible way. we all know we live in dangerous times. >> we also have a very different president. maybe it's just the passing of time. is it the passing of time or a different leadership style? in the bush administration, we heard frequently, stay vigilant, there's a lot of chatter, we continue to get warnings, you know, we're working against it. this president seems to have a different approach to it. is it just because the passing of time, less grave warnings in that chatter? or is it a different leadership style? >> well, if i can respond to that, john, by my sense, it is a different leadership style bush it's also a different sense of priorities. the last president, you know, the 9/11 occurred on his watch. he thought we were at war. he tried to put us mentally on a war footing. and keep us there. and this president obviously thinks this is more like a law enforcement-type problem. it's not a war. he's deescalated the rhetoric and instead focused on the economy.

as he faces the world, as we see on this trip he's taken now, he's put an increase and emphasis on the american competitiveness. i think for most americans, in fact, the competitiveness issue and jobs is really what they want to hear about. >> paul, quickly, in closing, when you hear from these intelligence sources, is there a date on a calendar, a time line, or is it just they hear about theoretical planning? >> well, they hear about actual planning in pakistan, al qaeda central over there, planning mumbai-style attacks against the united states and against europe. we saw a u.s. travel alert in october for u.s. citizens traveling in europe. there's concern about this as far as europe is concerned and more about the united states that we're seeing. in terms of sometime in the future is what they're talking about. it's difficult to know exactly, john. >> paul, david gergen, appreciate your insights on this sobering story. when we come back, a lot more to go in the program. we're going to introduce you to a new face in american politics you will hear a lot about in the years to come. martinez is about to become new

mexico's first latina governor in the united states of america, a rising republican star. you'll be interested in her views. and karl rove versus sarah palin is not the only example of tensions within the republican family. and you might say maybe pete's hung tri tonight, pete wants to talk about fast food politics. ♪ [ upbeat instrumental ] [ rattling ] [ gasps ] [ rattling ] [ laughing ] [ announcer ] close enough just isn't good enough. - if your car is in an accident, - [ laughing continues ] make sure it's repaired with the right replacement parts. take the scary out of life with travelers. call or click now for an agent or quote.

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welcome back. let's check in with joe johns for the latest news you need to know right now. >> john, attorney general eric

holder says the government is close to a decision on where to try alleged 9/11 mastermind khalid shaikh mohammed. senator chuck schumer quickly put out a statement saying the trial should not and will not be held in new york. outgoing house speaker pelosi was at today's groundbreaking for a new memorial honoring veterans disabled for life. it will include a star shaped reflecting pool with an internal flame. house speaker to be john boehner is complaining about how much money federal bureaucrats make. >> there ought to be a freeze and, frankly, we ought to freeze the pay. it's gotten to a point where the average federal worker makes twice as much as the average private sector worker. >> i do know the incoming house republican leadership is mad at the postal service and they think it's totally bloated. but they're also an awful lot of

engineers, lawyers, doctors, who could probably make a lot more in the private sector but he choose the federal government so -- >> it's an interesting point. this is one of the big republican ways they say they're going to rein in federal spending. let's look at some complaints you get from people. here's a change over the last five years. there has been a dramatic increase in the number of federal workers who make more than $150,000. so a dramatic increase of federal workers making more than 150 grand. a dram dramatic increase of those making more than $160,000. there has been a dramatic increase. that's one of the things the republicans complain about. let's make a comparison about the private sector. here's your average here, salary and benefits, 123,000. here's your private sector, 61,000. so half as much. that's one of the republican complaints. you hear someone who hears for state and local government also gets less than a federal civilian worker. let's make some industry

comparisons. if you're an airline pilot for the government, you make less money. you could make more in the private sector. if you're a cook for the federal government, you tend to do a lot better. you see some of these other jobs. janitors, optometrist. if you're a doctor, you make less. even if you froze federal salaries or cut federal salaries, look at this, civilian workers, only 6% of the federal government. the rest of it goes obviously to bigger spending in the pie. that's just a small slice but it will be a big issue debated as the republicans take over the house. a new republican face who will not be working here in washington but in the round house. that's what they call the state capitol in new mexico.

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people with answers at td ameritrade. get up to $500 when you open an account. susana martinez is among the republican party's rising stars. but she's not heading to congress. she will be new mexico's first hispanic female governor and will confront a big budget crisis as well as thorny immigration issues. governor-elect martinez joins us. first, could ngratulations on y victory. >> thank you, i appreciate it very much. >> already people are saying susana martinez is a new face of the national republican party. a latina, somebody who can help the party deal with, among other things, an issue, an image problem it has among latina americans. do you welcome that role? >> i do. i welcome the role of making sure we're having conversations

with other latinos throughout the country, particularly the way we did in new mexico. talking about what's important to them. changing the economy in new mexico. making sure we get our kids educated in the best possible way. and certainly cutting back on spending in state government. so i am proud to be part of that conversation with new mexicoens and changing the fashice of the republican party. >> does the republican party need to deal with immigration in a comprehensive way? >> absolutely. we cannot do that without first securing our border. as the district attorney on the second largest county in new mexico, that borders mexico, we have to shore up our border first before we can tackle the comprehensive immigration issues. i don't support amnesty. i don't support that we solve the problems in that fashion. there has to be some other way of dealing with the issue where it may be a tagback, where it may be where we identify individuals, but we cannot just have a path to citizenship

created when there are people in line already doing the proper things in order to become citizens of the united states. and so i do think we have to deal with this issue. the federal government has to come to the table. we have to make sure we're doing what's best. we can't invite the next wave of 10, 11 million individuals coming from throughout the world illegally into the united states thinking that we've solved the problem by merely providing amnesty once again. >> you have said no to an arizo arizona-like law in your state. you don't think undocumented should get a driver's license in your state, for example. if the governor-elect of florida or some other governor-elect called you and said, i'm going to do that in my state, why don't you like it, would you urge them not to do that? >> my focus has always been because we're right up against the murder capital of the world, which is what is mexico, my

county that i was the district attorney of, it was right up against the murder capital of the world. we have to first secure the border. my focus has been on removing the driver's licenses and revoking those that have already been issued. we have people coming from jamaica, poland, other countries, to get driver's licenses in new mexico, which then gives them passage throughout the country without being detected. there's nothing different about their driver's license and the driver's license i carry. so my focus has been on the criminal element. i never want an individual who's in new mexico who has been a victim of a violent crime not to be able to dial 911 and call the police and get the same treatment that any american citizen would receive as a victim of crime. we don't want to deal with immigration in that situation. we want to make sure that justice is brought to that type of an individual who has been a victim now of a violent crime. and so there's many layers to dealing with this immigration issue. we have to make sure it is a fair one, a constitutionality one, but first the border has to

be secured. >> let's move on to other challenges. you will be an example to the nation in some other ways. in washington, we're dealing with divided government again. you will be the new republican governor of a state with a democratic legislature facing somewhere in the ballpark of a $260 million budget shortfall. how will you deal with$260 million budget short fall. when you look specifically at the budget, is there any scenario under which the governor would raise taxes or how do you deal with that gap. >> i don't think that raising taxes is the answer to bringing back the positive aspects of our economy. in new mexico alone, government has grown by about 54%, when the population and inflation has never justified that. and so we have to cut back spending, zero growth. >> you will be the republican governor in a few short weeks, but you're a republican, why did

you switch? >> i just did what my parents did. but two friends actually sat us down and we had a long conversation about issues and it was about a two-hour conversation. i grew up in a very democratic city, where i was district attorney, republicans are outnumbered 3-1. and we talked about issues without using single words that people think completely define us. and they don't. we talked about whether welfare should be a way of life or a hand up to people who are struggling. i support the second amendment and the right to bear arms, whether we should have a big government that provides the answers to all our problems. but we just went down the litany of all issues, and after two hours, we walked away, my husband and i did and said we're republicans. i'm the same conservative

individual that my parent raised. but i was registered as a democrat as my parents were. >> the president of the united states says he looks forward to meeting with this new class of governors, i was at the white house wen jan brewer had a meeting with the president and it was largely on immigration and it was very unsatisfying to her. if you get five minutes with the president of the united states, what would you tell him? >> i certainly want him to focus in on new mexico and the issue of one creating jobs and reviving our economy, but also on the border. we must secure or border. we cannot continue to have the issues that we have, particularly living right next door to the murder capital of the world. people are dying every day by the dozens. last weekend, 20 individuals were murdered in juarez. we can't let that violence move over to the united states. i will talk to the governors and

talk about how they must start dealing with it as a federal government. >> you received the endorsement of former governor of alaska sarah palin. if she were to run for president in 2012, would you endorse her? >> i was pleased to severe the support of several governors throughout the state. mitt romney, i'm very honored to receive her support. but people are going to decide whether she should become the next president. she has certainly energized americans to stay focussed on what the elected officials are doing. >> i suspect all those potential republican candidates you just mentioned and probably a few month will be calling on the governor of new mexico. appreciate your time today. when we come back, live to alaska in the latest on the hand

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up in alaska today they started the painstakingly slow process of hand counting the ballots in the u.s. senate race. presumably most of those ballots contain lisa murkowski's name. how is it going? >> we have got about just over an hour to go for the vote count here. just want to give you the numbers. these were the first numbers that were released today. they counted about 7,000 or

exactly 7,638. of that amount, 89%, just over 89% are being sorted for lisa murkowski, that means they're not being contested, not added to the official tally. only about 8% are being counted for her and are being challenged so this is a very positive development for senator murkowski's campaign. >> do we have a sense this is going forward smoothly or when they get to the final numbers we're going to end up in court? >> i think it's probably headed for a lot of legal challenges if today or yesterday was any indication. you know, joe miller filed that lawsuit basically wanting to put a stop to a lot of the counting today saying that it's unconstitutional because the division of elections is designing the rules for how the ballot is going as opposed to

following what the legislature has laid out already, so we're probably in for a protracted legal battle. joe johns is here, our senior congressional correspondent dana bash and jessica yellin. i have to tell you when i look at those pictures of the recount, i have those flash backs to bush versus gore. do we just assume, we had a pretty smooth election process, a lot of talk about the recount in nevada and a recount here. we haven't seen a lot of lawyers. is this going to be our exception this year? >> we sort of have a pool going among the capitol hill press core, what's going to be longer, this or what happened in minnesota where it took seven, eight months with norm coleman. there's no question it's going to be. >> it's all about the technicalities. >> jessica yellin, the former

governor, sarah palin, every couple of days we get a hint, will she or won't she in 2012, listen to this. >> a lot of sacrifices have to be made and getting a good lay of the land because i would be in it to win it. >> flash blacks, hello, that was the line that then candidate hillary clinton used when she announced she would be running for president. sarah palin is trying to define this new sort of wave for conservative women to run for office, this mama grizzly umbrella term. and it seems like more and more women are turning to hillary clinton for inspiration, but she seems to be the one role modeled as a successful female candidate. >> here's someone who manned up today, john boehner will be the

new speaker of the house of representatives. he says he will be transparent, he won't be wasteful. he says he can get a jet at andrews air force base. john boehner says, not me, let's listen. >> i have talked to our security folks about the security that's involved in my new role. but over the last 20 years, i have flown forth to my district on commercial aircraft and i'm going to continue to do it. >> symbolically important? >> it is symbolically important and to be fair, speakers until 911, and denny hastert, a republican speaker started to change that, republicans have been all over nancy pelosi because he knew a much larger aircraft. >> pennies on the dollar in terms of saving any money. but they have to start somewhere. >> it's also the optics of it plain and simple. the other thing that you have to

say is the speaker shuttle as they call it was going a lot farther distance from here than all the way to ohio. >> do you think he's going to wear the sweater, when he flies commercial? that's my question. >> just what kind of plane does cnn send to get you when you're out on the west coast. >> i have any own stewardess on board. the last row doesn't recline. >> jeff, the fantasy's over. >> quick time-out for us, when we come back, is this a new era of republican infighting as the party comes to power in washington or more power in washington? there seems to be a lot of squabbling, stay with us. [ thunder rumbling ] [ thunder crashing ] and then, in one blinding blink of an eye, their tree had given its last. but with their raymond james financial advisor,

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republicans are taking over the house of representatives and it will be a stronger republican minority almost senate. watching it all, democratic

political strategist peter fend and eric erickson. i want to start with something i will call the political legacies of the bp oil spill. when the bp ceo was brought up to congress, republican joe barton, he said the obama administration was making -- i think this is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subject stod what i would characterize as a shakedown. in this case, a $20 billion shakedown with the attorney general of the united states who's legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has ever right to do so to protect the interests of the american people, participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that's unprecedented in our

nation's history. >> you guys both remember the blow back from the democrats when joe barton said that. this guy will be chairman of the committee that oversees the oil industry, the push back from the republican leadership was, no, he's term limited, he's run out his time as the ranking member and as we speak this evening, he is trying to get the chairmanship. >> there are a number of them on appropriations as well. i'm not in favor of waivers for any of them and from what i'm hearing, the house will not extend waivers. but i remember those conversations about joe barton where i was on tv with a lot of democratic consultants saying the voters would punish the republicans and there's no way they would take the house when comments like this were being said. i believed it when i saw it didn't happen.

>> in fact you may remember at that time the republicans were running. >> he does know the industry. >> he certainly does, he was 4 $214 million over 20 years that the republicans got from the oil and gas industry, he got a big chunk of it. the republicans ran from him, they were furious and they came down very hard. >> let's see, here's one, there's a little republican legacy of bp, but here's a democratic one, a new inspector general report out that said the obama white house edited a report that came over from the department. essentially the report that came over had a quiet from the experts backing up one point. and the white house took the quote and moved it up so that it appeared the outside experts were supporting the administration's deep water moratorium. the original draft le led to the implication that the moratorium had been peer reviewed by the

experts. >> problem, i mean peer review is something very, very important. they should haven't done that. that thing went out at 2:15 in the morning. that tells you something about sending out these kind of e-mails at 2:15 in the morning. the argument the white house is making it wasn't their intent to do that, what they were trying to do is show the arguments. >> there's a bigger issue saying this is why they need the moratorium, don't go with the injunction that the folks from louisiana were trying to get, it made a federal judge in new orleans very angry with them. they haven't gotten anything they wanted out of the federal courts in new orleans after this? >> the idea that senator jim demint and others want to convince senator or connell. >> i think this is the mendacity of hope on the republican side.

i put up something on a red state today, i have heard from three senators, two senators elect, not from their staff but from them directly. and this afternoon he's coming out saying he's not whipping for this vote. there were two senators that were left with the distinct impression that they are. >> when we come back, what's a the best part of a happy meal? the toy, right? pete's on the street and he's investigating some fast food politics. wh

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i'm going to let you in on a big secret here on the pete dominic requireme dominic retirement plan. if i put you on a plane to san francisco, you might have issues. >> it's official, san francisco is now a marxist city. san francisco has decided that you can no longer sell toys in a happy meal. this is america, if i want to fatten my 5 or 7-year-old and make them diabetic, that's up to me. so you can't buy the toy, this is a high quality piece of plastic from china. all mcdonald's has to do is give them candy. candy, john king, candy and gum. they can't tell you they can't put that in there, they can