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e number one thing that viewers like about the young turks is that we're honest. they know that i'm not bs'ing them with some hidden agenda, actually supporting one party or the other. when the democrats are wrong, they know that i'm going to be the first one to call them out. they can question whether i'm right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us.

>> this is "the bill press show," live on your radio and current tv. >> bill: all right. 27 minutes after the hour. one of the big issues here in our nation's capitol and around the country, of course, while we are waiting for the supreme court decision which wiwon't know until june how they come down on same-sex marriage. there is a lot of movement on that front. we told you yesterday there were only eight democrats left who had not supported -- actually flipped from opposing marriage equality to supporting it tom harp ter announced he has

evolved on the issues much like president obama did and secretary of state, former secretary of state hillary clinton did and more surprisingly, maybe yesterday, the second republican united states senator, mark kirk from illinois came out in support of same-sex marriage. illinois is one of those states that is expected to actually statewide endorse marriage equality before june before the supreme court decision comes out. that leaves seven democrats. they are, again, give them a call today, get them on board, joe mancion, bill nelson, mary landriux heidi heitkamp joe done lee, mark pryor. that list is getting smaller and smaller every day. pretty soon, let's get it down to zero. all right. when we come back, president obama announcing a bold new initiative yesterday, to study the human brain.

we will find out all about it next on the "full-court press." >> this is "the bill press show." converstion started weekdays at 9am eastern. >> i'm a slutty bob hope. >> you are. >> the troops love me. (vo) tv and radio talk show host stephanie miller rounds out current's morning news block. >> you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. just be grateful current tv does not come in smellivision. the sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. (vo) only on current tv.

>> chatting with you live at current.com/billpress, this is "the bill press show" live on your radio and current tv. >> hey, you bet it is. 33 minutes after the hour now, wednesday, april 3rd, great to see you today. it is the full court press coming to you live from our nation's capitol brought to you by the american federation of teachers the good men and women of the aft under president randy weingarten, making a difference in the classrooms of america find out more about their good work at aft.org.

president obama, we have heard him say often that while we have to cut and he has we also have to continue to invest particularly, he says, in rebuilding the infrastructure investing in new energy and new energy technology, green jobs and in new innovation. yesterday he came through in the east room of the white house announcing a very exciting new brain initiative or brain project, it's called. here first is the president. >> there is this enormous mystery waiting to be unlocked. the brain initiative will change that by giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action. >> what is this all about? we turn to dr. thomas insol,

director of the national institute of mental health who was involved in helping the white house put this together. dr. ensel, good to have you with us. >> good to be here. thanks bill. >> i am -- boy, you want to look for people who are totally ignorant of what this project is all about, you probably found the number 1 here my first question is: don't we already know everything about the brain or how it works? >> that's a crazy question. if you think about it, you know, we come pretty far in understanding how most of our body functions. we know a lot about how the heart pumps and how the kidney filters. in fact, we know so much we can build machines to do pretty much what those organs do. >> right. >> when you think about the brain, we understand that the brain is important for memory and for encoding information and for perception and for behavior. but the fundamentals of how it

does that, we don't even begin to really understand. in fact, if we had to build a machine to do what the brain does it would be a very poor replica. and it would never begin to look anything like at a time amazing things that our brains are able to do every day. >> so is this -- if this is -- i am sure there is a lot of work that's going on right now toward understanding the brain and how it works. it's already been going on medical research facilities all around the country. so is this going to augment work that's already underway or is there an entire initiative? and where will it take place? in any one particular million facility or several? >>. >> it will be driving on strong foundations and most of what we are talking about here and you heard this from the president is creating new tools. >> uh-huh. in science whether you are talking about atrost meomy or in

neuroscience where you are trying to build yet a better way of seeing into the brain. often we need the technology to take us to a new level. what the president announced yesterday is that an initiative to create those technologies. where will it happen? it's probably going to happen in many places to look at what are the big barriers to progress? what are the best kinds of science to bring to the table? how much of this is going to be coming out of simulations with very powerful computational science? how much will require new kinds of engineering and material science? how much of it is just better biology? all of those questions are going to be on the table. we've got a very smart group. it's really a dream team of scientists that have come

together. they will give us some of the best ideas where to make these investments. >> dr. thomas insel, is this under the nih or any existing agency? >> it will be three agencies. it will be the nih, which we hope will be sort of the flagship for this project. there will be darma and the national science foundation. as the president announced yesterday, he will pull, we hope $100 million symbol his budget, spent across those three agencies and each of those will take a piece of this and will try to run with it. we will be working pretty closely together and, actually, there are a lot of private groups that have jumped into this as well. we have help from the howard hughes medical institute, the allen brain developed by paul allen, a co-finder of microsoft and several others, the cobbly foundation has done a lot to

bring nano technology to bureau biology. a lot is going on here. the announcement yesterday is really an effort to bring it all together and kick it up a notch. we are pretty excited about this opportunity. and, also, the enthusiasm of the president, himself. >> bill: you could see that yesterday. >> we have come to understand that most of the disorders that we are looking at schizophrenia, autism depression beepi-polar disorder, these are brain disorders. what we are trying to understand is what's happening in the brain to be -- to lead some people to very long hallucinations and delusions and others not. we don't really have the tools. we have some ways of look looking at the brain now that

may have been helpful, getting us pretty far down this path. but we need this new effort to begin to say this will be a diagnostic tool or this will be a way of targeting our interventions so we can get much better outcomes. >> alzheimer's, is that also? >> absolutely. autism and alzheimer's, epilepsy parkinson's are more classically thought of but i think in the new era what's changing, at least in our these classical psychiatric disorders as being brain disorders as well. these new tools should be very helpful in getting us there. >> bill: the president yesterday made sort of an analogy to the human genome when he was talking about that this may sound like it's costing a lot of money $100 million, but the payback, potential payback, at any rate, is great, as has

been proven with the human genome project. what's he referring to? >> when what he is he's referring to the human genome project was expensive. i think there is some data to support this for every dollar that was invested in that project, $147 were returned in economic growth because it created an industry. what is more relevant to this project is the way in which if we mate make the right investments in basic science, we can come up with better treatments for sick people and the reason i bring that up here is because when you look at the economic drivers of healthcare, it's brain diseases whether it's alzheimer's or autism that are so much a part of the huge economic burden of healthcare in

the united states. so one hopes that this kind of investment will help us to be able to diagnose and treat these disorders better and bring down the cost because as mary lassiter used to say if you think research is expensive, try disease. it's a much better investment to try to do the research to reduce the cost of illness. >> bill: finally, i wanted to ask you, you mentioned this agency and i heard jay carney at our white house briefing mention it which i must admit, of all of the government agencies unawar darpa? >> yeah. >> that's out of the defense department? >> sort of like where the internet came from? >> correct. the gps systems and technologies that we now think of as such an important part of our lives came out of darpa. why is darpa interested? they are interested in traumatic

brain injury and trying to come up with better ways of helping soldiers. it has been to develop a smart helmet that soldiers wear in the field. it's a green light, red light oriole light what kind of trauma to the head some of these experience when an ied goes off at the side of the road and a jeep turns over. those are the kind of technologies that could be transform avian. it's connected to healthcare but it needs better tooks and much better science to support it. >> i have got to say, you know, we don't hear a lot of good news coming out of washington these days. or a lot of new stuff, right? i find it very, very exciting.

this very important research into the mapping of the brain, the brain initiative announced by the president yesterday. thanks for joining us this morning. >> thank you. >> dr. thomas insel, director of the national institute of mental health i feel better already. >> fascinating stuff. >> helmet with darpa. yes realize gps came out of that. >> did you ever see the movie, the men who stare at goats. it's about transdental warfare. >> on your radio and on current tv this is "the bill press show." (vo) no one brings you more documentaries that are real, gripping, current.

(vo) she gets the comedians laughing and the thinkers thinking. >>ok, so there's wiggle room in the ten commandments, that's what you're saying. (vo) she's joy behar. >>current will let me say anything.

>> this is "the bill press show." >> all right. here we go 12 minutes before the top of the hour. before we get back into the news of the day here is one story you might have missed from up in maine. a guy was coming back to his summer home and he noticed somebody else going into his mail box. he reported him and the police arrested a russian national having mailed addresses to the vacant second homes of people up there. and in that particular mailbox, the police found multiple credit cards made out in other people's names he was rounding up,

getting their personal information, opening credit cards in their names, having it sent to empty summer home mailbox. what a scam. one more example of identity theft run amok. you are a victim potential victim if you are not protected against it. i've got the protection of life-lock ultimate, most comprehensive id theft probation ever made. monitors your bank accounts. lifelock can't protect you if you are not a mer. call now. mention press 60. you will get 60 risk-free days of lifelock ultimate identify thing theft protection. if you are not happy with that, give them a call within another 60 days and cancel. you get a full refund. see lifelock.com for details and give them a call at 1800. 3565967. 1-800-356-5967. before we move on to our next topic here, i have to point out one post script on the brain project. >> uh-huh. >> we thank our good friends at

talk radio news service and victoria is going to be here as a friends of bill for the next hour. in fact, this is victoria who reports yesterday that newt gingrich has come out in full support of the president's brain initiative. >> that makes oddly enough, that makes sense. >> it does. you know, this is the kind of stuff that -- this is all you would see if newt were in the white house. >> exactly. >> colonies on mars and farout kind of all kind of research. >> newt ideas. >> he congratulated president obama for making scientific research a priority in his forthcoming budget and coming out yesterday. all right. now, how about this one? your -- i am not sure you are going to like this but samoa airlines made a big announcement they have changed the way they are going to charge for tickets they say they are going to keep

airfares fair by charging passengers only for what they weigh. when you check in online, you tell them what flight you want, where you want to go and how much you weigh and they will tell you how much your ticket is. airplanes don't run on seats. they run on weight: first of all, i don't think it's going to fly, pardon the pun here in the united states but i think it makes sense because the heavier the load the more fuel you burn, the more expensive it is to fly. >> i think it's a brilliant idea. there is so much other stuff

there where we paragraph by weight. shipping, u.s. postal service, ups. >> talking about people. >> cargo. >> right. but people are, still, it costs to ship them if you weigh something. >> you are calling yourself cargo. >> i am comfortable calling myself that i weigh something. those things cost because they weigh something. >> why would this start in samoa? the biggest people on the planet probably. >> in samoa. >> just saw this. 80% of women in american samoa are obese. >> maybe it's not necessary in other parts of the world. i don't think you have this problem in ethiopa. >> i don't know. >> ethiopian air. >> that's one i will never fly. that's for damn sure. >> parts of the planet where people could be thin iris all i

am saying. >> if the argument is that we are cargo -- everybody is different. cargo is a static thing. it weighs this much because this is what it is. >> here is the deal. i am on the plane at a time costs him them twice as much to fly him than me. >> i am not sure it costs twice as much to fly him. >> costs more. >> costs more definitely? >> i am not so sure that it is. >> no. no. no. it does. i am pretty sure of that. do a little bit research. >> if a guy weighs 50 pounds more than you and you've got how ever many people on a plane, i have been been on planes where

they ask people to shift around. the weight makes a difference. smallerplans, i have seen people ask, hey fatty would you move up front? revolution. in airlines start with samoan airlines. >> i am for making people too fat to sit into a seat buy another seat. i have no problem with that. let's say you've got someone who is 7-foot, 2. they can't control that. they are going to weigh more than somebody else. >> not necessarily. >> to be discussed further. >> this is "the bill press show." [ music ]

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[ music ] >> this is "the bill press show." >>pom >> president obama on the road today. he leaves the white house after he gives his daily briefing just about noon for the flight out to denver where he will be going to the denver police academy meeting with law enforcement and community officials and giving some remarks this afternoon in denver on gun violence and the measures that congress should pass to keep us all safer. then he goes off to san francisco, lucky dude getting a night in san francisco. he will be speaking at a fundraiser for the democratic congressional campaign committee with leader nancy pelosi at a private residence and spending the night in san francisco. no briefing today. jay carney will be gaggling on air force one. we will be back with victoria

jones as a friend of bill's. >> this is "the bill press show."

>> bill: here we go, hour number 3 of the "full-court press" this morning, this wednesday morning april 3rdrd. great to see you today. thank you for joining us. it is the full court press coming to you live on current tv bringing you the news of the day and, most xwovrnlth, giving you a chance to be part of the conversationimportantly, giving you a chance to be part of the conversation conversation. we love to hear from you, love to hear the voices from all across the country, agree or disagree.

give us a call at 866-55-press: got on line and follow us on twitter @bpshow. give us your comments @bpshow. and at facebook.com/bill press show. president obama hops on air force one today for the flight out to denver. he will be going to the denver police academy where he will be delivering remarks this afternoon, again, encouraging people to contact congress and tell them now is the time to move on sensible common sense gun safety measures including full background checks and a ban on assault weapons and those high-capacity magazines. meanwhile, the nra the nra campaigning for more guns in schools. samoan airlines, if you have been watching the last hour has

announced they are going to charge people for tickets based on what they weigh not how much they can pay. oh, my. lots to talk about, and we will on current tv. [ music ] iq will go way up. (vo) current tv gets the converstion started weekdays at 9am eastern. >> i'm a slutty bob hope. >> you are. >> the troops love me. (vo) tv and radio talk show host stephanie miller rounds out current's morning news block. >> you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. just be grateful current tv does not come in smellivision. the sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. (vo) only on current tv.

[ music ] >> broadcasting across the nation, on your radio and on current tv this is "the bill press show." >> bill: two more senators, one democrat, one republican, on board now with marriage equality. it's the new gold rush. they are falling like flies. good morning, everybody. great to see you today. it is the full court press. this is wednesday, april 3rd, 2013. good to see you today. we are coming to you live from our nation's capitol and our

studio on capitol hill. a lot going on we want to talk about here in washington around the country and around the globe, wherever it's happening. we've got it covered. we will tell you what's going on. more importantly, we will give you a chance to sound off and tell us what it all means to you and your family. you can do so by giving us a call at 866-55-press. >> that's our toll-free number. follow us on twitter and talk to us on twitter @bp show and on facebook at facebook.com/billpressshow. those are just three of the ways you can reach victoria jones here from talk radio news white house correspondent, in studio with us this hour as a friend of bill's, victoria, nice to see you. >> fob. >> friend of bill. how are you doing? >> great. i really. >> i know. thanks for getting up early. >> i am always up early. >> normally we drag her in an hour earlier than than this. >> i have been up since 2:00, you know. >> good lord. >> yeah. >> why go to bed? >> i don't. i just stay up.

>> why the hell are you up at 2:00? >> i have a 6:00 o'clock, 6:30 deadline i have to get a newsletter out. crazy. >> good lord? >> it's insane. i don't go to bed. i just stay up. >> bill: i hadthought i had a bad schedule. >> you want a beer or something? you have been up. >> nodding off yeah. >> it's dinner time. >> really. >> we have the team here, peter ogburn and dan henning and stevie lee web on the phone and cyprian boulding a big week because the nats opening day. >> still winning, i presume opening day. >> still 1 to nothing. >> exactly. >> the texas rangers played their second game.

pitcher yew dar verb did not allow one hit, one run scan. two batters down, one batter away from a perfect game. here is what happened. >> here comes darvish pitch, up the middle. base hit. on gonzalez has ruined the no-hitter, the perfect game. darvish has a smile on his face. i believe the vast majority of the people in this crowd cannot believe it. >> there it is. i mean so close. so close. >> why would he do that to somebody? >> exactly. why wouldn't that better just stand there and not even swing? >> just mean. >> because it's sports. you have to earn it, damn it. there have been 21 perfect games

thrown. thrown. you don't get to walk into history. you have to earn it. michael strahan from the new york giants set the sack record. >> getting all sportsy. >> by sacking brett favre his friend. >> masculine voice on. >> let me tell you something. brett favre told his offensive line, let strahan through. et set the record. it's bs. you have to earn it. stop it. shame on you. >> wow. >> you can tell we don't play. >> i wanted to get a perfect game. i say it's like when you are playing with a good friend and like golf, is the only thing i can relate to and he has a good score coming and there it is a long putt. you say, oh, that's him. >> but that's not a part of history. you are not joining -- seriously. >> part of my history. >> progressal major league baseball? >> then you do. you've got to earn it. you've really got to earn it,

but the guy could have blinked. don't you think? >> exactly. >> could have sneezed. >> shame on you? >> something could have happened. the kind of thing that could happen. >> shame. >> no. >> you bleeding heart liberal. >> i bet he has amount of guilt. 11 minutes after the hour. we have more serious stuff to get into. we will. john stanton of the washington bureau chief for buzz feed. >> where they show cats. all the time. i am getting out the cat pictures. >> why i plan this. >> she has her cat voice on. >> is that why he is coming by the way? >> exactly. but first. >> the full court press. >> other headlines making news score one for bill marr over donald trump. trump has withdrawn his $5 million lawsuit against the hbo comedian who last year

offered to pay him $5 million bucks to a charity of trump's choice if he could provide a birth certificate that could provide he is not the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutang. >> how excited were you to read that? i am jealous. >> trump's attorney has said the lawsuit has been temporarily withdrawn to be amended and refiled at a later date. >> temporarily withdrawn. he says his mother was a very beautiful woman. >> michelle obama got a little star-struck at the white house yesterday, the hill reports the first lady says she was tripping out because hair ford one of her favorite actors was there. he stars in the new movie "42" about jackie robinson with the baseball great's 90-year-old widow and the actor who plays jackie. they conducted a workshop about the might have for kids movie

for kids. >> the two projectionists that michelle bachman they had to wake them up to show the movie. >> exactly. >> asleep at the whitehouse all the time so they are ready to push the button. >> michelle obama is so abusing this gig because now she's got justin timberlake coming to the white house later this month. she is exploiting this gig to get in her favorite stars. >> that's what it's all about when you are first lady. >> and wearing dresses. >> that's all she does. >> sports desk louisville basketball star kevin wares was released after the horrific injury he suffered in the game against duke which everyone saw on television. he has a compound fracture in his leg. u.s.a. today reports he would be attending this weekend's final 4 in atlanta and he was at louisville louisville's practice yesterday. >> having him there. >> greatest mascot in baskethall

history is having kevin ware on your sideline. atlanta is his had hometown where they are playing. >> that's going to be awesome. >> victory gentleman i want to start with yesterday, we have been getting the rundown every day in the last week. there were 10 democrats who had not yet supported same-sex marriage and over the weekend, there were only eight left. now today there are only seven left because tom carper said i have evolved like kay hagan. >> is it cory graphed, do you think? >> yesterday, also, maybe more surprising, mark kirk, republican from illinois ron portman who came out because of my son mark kirk just said i just think this is the right thing to do. i am bucking my party and doing it. it's like they are falling all

over themselves mark concern has done a lot of good work in that area. if anybody was going to come out from the republican party, it's not that surprising that he would be the one. >> yeah. >> that's interesting. >> this issue has had a -- i mean, a sea change of opinion. >> yeah. >> now elected officials? >> he said it was a civil issue. he didn't mention it in the religious context which is an important distinction. >> it's an important distinction. not talking about forcing churches to do anything. >> senator tom carper, you wonder did he do it because he wanted a little bit of attention? >> interesting that both delaware and i will know there

are four states. i forget the other two now but there are four states that are believed to be ready and will come out for marriage equality even before the supreme court rules. so -- >> there are two or of them. >> delaware and i will know. >> exactly. >> surprising barbara mccull ski is still evolve okay this issue considering that -- i think she is on board. >> is she on board? i thought she was still evolving. >> we have the list here. >> maryland is pretty on board with it. >> totally now seven left, mancian, tim zonson south dakota. height heidi heitkamp, joe donnelly and mark pryor. tim johnson is retiring but he is still not out there. there are seven. there is a lot of pressure of course. >> i was thinking who is up in 2014? >> landreiux.

donnelly just elected. heighttkamp just elected. bill nelson was just -- wasn't he just re-elected. >> he goes his own way. >> and joe mancion. >> he goes his own way, too. he has spoken out against president obama sol many occasions. >> this was the killer tissue to change the constitution. every one of them passed. and today, the whole thing is flipped. you know, in terms of an issue. we also talked a little earlier about the big run-off yesterday in south carolina the highest profile con greensal race on may 7th, five weeks from now? >> this is fascinating former

governor mark sanford liked the apalachian trail when he disappeared and went to visit his arrange en 10ian mistress, i have no problem with but he set himself up as a holier than thou religious conservative now, he is running as a repentant religious conservative. >> yeah. s he was endorseforced into a run-off. last week, the run-off, emerges, the republican candidate up against elizabeth colbert bush whom -- talk about somebody nobody ever heard of except for the fact that her middle name is actually pronounced colbert. >> right. >> she is the sister of. >> stephen colbert, very high

profile, has fund raised for her: it has helped her enormously and she is seen as a dark horse and could do well the democrats have done not badly although he obviously is the favorite. this race could go against him in south carolina. >> he had last night at his victory party his arrange en 10iantenian tenian. >> she is his fiance. >> the one time arrange en tenian bunny. >> on stage with him and his son. >> his boys. >> because he's divorced now. he's divorced and it was a very complicated political divorce because wasn't she going to run for something? >> she was thinking about running for that seat. they had to work it out. it was all very, very weird. >> there was a period there of a

couple of days where it looked like she might run, and he might are the run. >> that would have be so great. >> it would have been great for us. >> it would have been. >> i want to ask you about the nra's big statement yesterday. they have found a way. right? to be sure that we have no more tragedies. you can imagine. when we come back on the "full-court press" with victoria jones from huff radio news talk radio news.com. >> this is the full court press, "the bill press show" live on your radio and on current tv. nuance on it. in reality it's not like they actually care. this is purely about political grandstanding.

alright, in 15 minutes we're going to do the young turks. i think the number one thing young turks is that we're honest. they know that i'm not bs'ing them with some hidden agenda, actually supporting one party or the other. when the democrats are wrong, they know that i'm going to be the first one to call them out. they can question whether i'm right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us. [ music ]

>> heard around country and seen on current tv, this is "the bill press show." >> bill: i am not supposed to recognize that music. >> on your ipod. the real bill press >> bill: somehow, i don't. >> that's m & m. >> i will ask marco rubio. >> exactly. there you go. >> so hip. >> he can help me out here. 25 minutes after the hour? >> i have to ask you a question. >> yes? >> i think he is trying to scuttle immigration reform. >> so do i for the tea party? >> yes. i do. i think that's exactly what he is trying to do. the obsessive hate thing in his letter over the weekend, wanting the extensive hearings, it's all a slow walk. >> bill: he is, i think, like a double agent. >> yes. >> he has infiltrated the gang of 8.

>> a mole. >> once they get close to anything, he will come out and hold his own news conference and say this is a pile of crap. we are opposed to it and he will get enough republicans to filibuster it. >> that's exactly. >> you and i read it the same way. former congressman on behalf of the nra came out yesterday, victoria and said we know how to fix the schools. at the press club yesterday. >> we also have prepared for the first time that i am aware of, a model training program for selected and designated armed school person he will. this is probably the one item that catches everybody's attention. >> uh-huh. >> bill: yeah. and he says that it doesn't mean that every teacher will be armed. he said just as teachers who volunteer. here he is? >> let me emphasize. this is not talking about all teachers. teachers should teach. but if there is a personnel has has good interest, an interest in it, that is willing to go

through this training, again, 40 to 60 hours that is totally comprehensive, then that is an appropriate resource that a school should be able to utilize. >> all of the teachers that volunteer to go through the training and have a gun in their classroom. i just saw one comment this morning. you have 25 curious little kids in the classroom and there is a gun in the teacher's desk. what could possibly go wrong? >> nothing. particularly if the teacher has happens to leave the gun or leaves the gun in the bathroom. what's fascinating about this is they say the guards have to go through background checks. >> yeah. >> but no background checks for anybody else. >> for criminals buying guns?

>> >> bill: the gun can't be loaded because that would be too dangerous around the kids. the gun can't be easily, you know, like in the drawer where could open the drawer. that would be too dangerous. so the gun has to be unloaded and locked up so what's the point? if somebody comes in? excuse me. hold on just a second while i get my gun? >> it makes no sense. when lanza fired off a zillion rounds in less than than five minutes. >> the answer is a good guy with a gun, we have been talking about poor law enforcement people in texas. they had guns with them guns with them at all times and two district attorneys, goodgize with guns blown away. >> dead. >> guns did them no good whatsoever. i think the nra has lost all credibility to tell the truth. lots more coming up.

victoria jones. we will be we will be right back. >> this is the bill press"the bill press show." to me now? you know the kind of guys that do reverse mortgage commercials? those types are now. (vo) she gets the comedians laughing and the thinkers thinking. >>ok, so there's wiggle room in the ten commandments, that's what you're saying. you would rather deal with ahmadinejad than me. >>absolutely. >> and so would mitt romney. (vo) she's joy behar. >>and the best part is that current will let me say anything. what the hell were they thinking?

[ music ] >> chatting with you live at current.com/billpress. this is "the bill press show" live on your radio and current tv. >> bill: 33 minutes after the hour. i am telling you serendipity on the "full-court press" because joining us in studio a good friend, washington bureau chief for buzzfeed john stanton. hey, john. great to see you? >> good to be here. >> john telling us he has just opened, buzzfeed has just opened a a new bureau in london. who is here as our friend of

bill? britain's victoryia jones. >> well cool that they did that. >> bill: do you think buzzfeed will be a big success in the uk? >> they love satire in britain, private eye, things like that. you know. >> look at who they elected? >> cross-dressing politicians. >> they have a royal family that's nothing but entertainment? >> nothing but entertain ing, no. gets better and better. prince harry is coming back? >> he is coming. >> coming back to washington for strip poker in washington. >> i hope he goes to the lounge. >> did you see chris christie says when he makes sure prince harry on the jersey shore. >> i can't imagine. >> nothing could go wrong. right? nothing could go wrong with the sequester. i have to tell you what is bugging me more than anything these days is you get this

narrative going in washington among the press corps. everybody starts reporting the same -- present company excluded, reporting the same story. the narrative i hear more and more is here we are already a third of april, the sequester kicked in the 1st of march, and look, the metro is running. you hit the light switch. the lights go on. you know, you go to a restaurant and you order and your food comes. there is no big deal with the sequester, john stanton. >> it's funny. this was the biggest problem with this thing was that if there wasn't going to be this cataclysmic problem with the government shutdown overnight, no one wanted to pay attention. there are a lot of people being affected. washington has been exempted from a lot of the economic up and downs of the country because the company of this town is the government. the government never messed with

its own spending. washington has until now been exempted. now because the sequester is targeting the government, we are starting to see that. it's a little disconcerting, frankly, that a lot of reporters aren't seeing it and that tends, i think, to point toward the fact that they don't know a lot of local people. >> why are they not seeing it? victoria? why are the real white house reporters, for example, not seeing it? >> because they live in a bleeding cockcon is why. >> you have written about one guy? >> jeff mariak an army reservist who served in bosnia, kosovo, iraq and afghanistan and north africa. he is a very much sort of an average american, you know. he's made some bad decisions financially, got a lot of debt. and when times were good, he bought himself sort of a nice

brand-new bmw and he was living in north carolina and he had this job that was good but had zero chance of advancement. he had gone as far as he could, looking for another job. his kids were getting older. it gave him the opportunity to maybe move a little bit and got a job at fort meade. >> civilian employee at fort meade? >> he took the job understanding he was going to be paycheck to paycheck which is very much a traditional modern american thing, and but it had the opportunity for advancement. he could move forward. he takes the job and in january moves up here and his son had to have this subject, a crappy apartment, and then the sequester comes along and, you know, he sold the bmw and got a different car and tried to cut down on some expenses but he was now so far under the line that

he wasn't able to make his chide support payments. first he takes a job four nights a week delivering pizzas for papa johns. that only makes up about half the amount of money he lost. so now jeff is actively applying for deployment to the combat zones because you get a year of tax-free pay. they pay for your housing. you get a couple of hundred dollars extra for hazard and combat pay. he is hoping that will allow him to get on top of his finances. he was making it by. this was hurting him. >> he he's been furloughed? >> they are starting. they are starting now, yes. >> furloughed means you get -- you work four days a week, the fifth day you are forced to take off and you don't get paid for that? >> 20% pay cut. >> the guy is probably making -- >> a lot of money.

that's the thing that he is average. he is making $80,000 a year. but when you look at his expenses, he has a house he can't sell in north carolina like a lot of folks who bought a house. it's not salable right now. he has an apartment a car, kids. he has to pay for insurance for his children even though he doesn't neated it and there are a lot of things. this is not a story of, you know, the guy making $30,000 with 17 kids and he's got cancer, you know, whoa is me. this is a story of an average american. if you think about it, you know, multiplied by how many? >> the thousands of people. >> tens of thousands of times? >> think about your own life. imagine if you are making your budgeting decisions and most americans, whether we like to admit it or not have too much debt. most of us are living close if not at paycheck to paycheck. someone came along because they didn't want to deal with the problem and said, we are going to take 27% of your pay away

from you. without advanced notice, you know, >> bill: my job will not be affected because i am a member of congress. >> even though congressional staffers' salaries are being impacted because of the way that the graham-rudman act was written, congress's stuff is not being impacted. there is a quirk. they are getting away with it and they didn't address it when they wrote the sequester. isn't that astonishing. >> bill: by design, yeah. >> yeah. >> you know, secretary hagel has already announced he is going to voluntarily take some kind of pay cut that the members of dod are which is something, one person standing up, even though he had nothing to do with the sequester at all. if anybody has the ability to not do it, it would be him

>> bill: not to mention the opposition or the competition, but i will huffington post did a really good piece, sam stein and amanda terkel they addressed this issue? what do you mean? the sequester is not having a real impact? their article is on up on their sight right now that documents 100 cases. i am sure today, if you went you could find 200. >> yeah. >> they found 100 cases of cuts in headstart or medical research or people who have been fired or furloughed already all around, all across the country. >> central park. all kind of things >> bill: every day you see more stories like this. we had a call this morning from an air traffic controller on the center here that does -- that's over everything flying in this area dulles national, bwi. he said every single air traffic controller -- i haven't had a chance to double-check this but he said every air traffic controller in the country has gotten a furlough letter. that means they will not work as

many days, they will not be able to handle as many flights. he said there is just no way they can continue to manage the same capacity manage the flights that they do today. 1/5 reduction. we will see more and more of these things kicking in? >> but the problem is it's never going to get to a critical mass at this point. everybody that i have talked to on the hill -- >> do you think it will? >> no. it seems everyone is operating on the hill. it was operating under the assumption this is the law of the land and it will stay that way. maybe a year in, when cuts get to be more significant, you may see action. but congress this was supposed to be the sort of damacle's

hang-over. the fact that they are willing to allow it to happen shows the unwillingness really of everybody involved, on both sides. to make a tough decision and try to figure out how to deal with entitlement spending, with long-term spending research kind of stuff, finding ways. there are ways to do this when you are not impacting people as much as it is now. >> we are going to see lines at the airport, problems with people traveling. we are going to see people don't have as much access to national parks. people are going to start to complain. it will be too late. they are going to let it go. >> was it oversold in the beginning? >> i think they did over sell it absolutely even though jay carney was saying yesterday at the whitehouse, no, there are cuts. we are going to feel them.

it's all very well to say that, but for about a week at the whitehouse briefings, you saw this. i saw this. they rolled out different secretaries, ray lahood who was great, by the way, and other ones who were very boring telling us how bad it was going to. and that's fine but the problem was that it did reek of hype. napolitano talking about how bad it was going to be except it's going to be in three or 4 months. >> it's the boy who cried wolfe a little bit on this. they said it's not happening now, you know, like yesterday when they were talking about the cuts at the whitehouse, you know, it's not -- it's not jay carney that's going to get furloughed. >> know. >> not dan pfeiffer, not the chief of staff. it's guys at o & b which nobody has heard of o & b and they are sort of technically part the of the white house. >> or the white house towerurs, which everybody noticed.

>> six minutes before -- sixteen minutes before the top of the hour t john stanton and victoria jones for talk radio news. the sequester, any impact you see in your community, give us a call at 866-55-press. we will be right back. >> on your radio and on current tv this is "the bill press show." [ music ] >> you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. just be grateful current tv does the sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. (vo) only on current tv.

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is "the bill press show" >> bill: twelve minutes before the top of the hour, talking about the big stories of the day particularly here from our nation's capitol, either end of capitol hill what's happening down at the whitehouse with victoria jones from talk radio news. she covers the white house. we go to the briefings together and john stanton here, washington bureau chief for buzzfeed, which now has bureaus in new york, washington and london london? >> l.a. >> bill: all right. you got it covered, man. >> the site has done well >> bill: congratulations? >> thank you >> bill: president obama leaves the white house for denver. on monday, he is going up to hartford, connecticut, to give a speech again about gun safety gun control, and he's doing that today in denver going tots denver police academy and then giving -- making some public remarks about the need for congress to act. so we saw last week that the

state of connecticut acted, the toughest gun control room measures in the nation. if the connecticut legislature can do it, john, why can't con congress? >> because congress is never going to do something like that you know, partly, it's a power deal. >> yeah. >> i think, you know, look the fact is the nra is a very powerful o. there is no doubt, i think, about that. but honestly, if you look at the house, the best majority of republican conference the nra isn't having to lobby them hard and we have moved far enough away from -- from newtown that there is no longer any kind of sirius pressure on members of the republican party and even some democrats who might have been willing to do some kind of you know, like controls on large capacity magazines or even maybe assault weapons. >> that's just there is no pressure for thatnym.

it was shocked what happened there and once you get past that, people sort of fall back in their more traditional positions and there is just no chance at this point. >> gun reform is going to fail. >> yeah. >> nothing is going to happen? >> look. we are probably going to get school safety, and it may even be the nra plan because the nra came with a package. if you come with a package already made, it's very easy for people to take it on board. nobody else comes up with a package. >> nobody is going to buy that nra plan? >> some schools will because it's easy. >> congress is not going to buy it. >> people may go for the straw purchases part of the bill although some people are even opposing that. i don't think expanded background checks is necessarily going to get through. there is opposition to that now. i am not sure, and chuck schumer can't even get a republican to come on board with him even though he has joe mancion. so i am not sure that's going to get through. nothing else is going to get through. and i think it's going to -- i don't think you are going to see

gun safety reform. i really -- i think the nra has won. >> bill: it's just like it's a good reason for throwing the whole damn bunch of them out and starting all over again if they can't deal with this issue at this time, this is bloody disgraceful? >> part of it is the white house and concongressional democrats sort of don't want something to pass. i mean this is politically, this is good for them. i think the way they view it, that if they can set this up so that they force a vote in the senate that dies because of a republican filibuster and they can try to get it on the floor and make a big deal trying to get it on the floor over and over again in the next year in the house and republican leadership doesn't allow them, that all turns into ads for them in 2014. you know, the obama administration and democrats that are running, their party in the house and senate are nothing if not politically minded and obama made it clear that he would love to have his last two years of his administration with the house under democratic

control room so he could try to pass some legislation instead of sitting on his hands for two years, so on one level -- and i think it's a very big level for everyone involved, i think democrats see this as a potential. >> bill: the only flaw in that argument, i think, is one way that republicans could foil all of the democrats. if that's what they are thinking is one way the democrats could foil them. i mean republicans could and that is by voting for some sensible gun control legislation and making something happen. >> they could. >> take this argument right away. >> they could. but they won't. it's the same. ted cruz i don't think this is true but senator ted cruz says what you are saying about immigration reform. he said obama wants to take it as a stick and beat them with it which i don't think is true. but ted cruz says that's what obama wants to do. he wants it to fail to use it as a wedge issue in 2014 and 2016. >> bill: with that resisting

the temptation to give you my thoughts about ted cruz, i want to thank you both for your time and for coming all the way in this morning. john, great to see you john stanton from buzzfeed.com and talk radionews.com victoria jones. >> thank you. >> this is "the bill press show." [ music ]

(vo) current tv gets the converstion started next. >> i'm a slutty bob hope. >> you are. >> the troops love me. the sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. (vo) only on current tv. [ music ] >> the parting shot with bill press, this is "the bill press show." >> bill: you have heard me say it before, but i will say it again. sometimes, i am really embarrassed by the questions my colleagues ask down at the whitehouse briefings like, yesterday, the latest narrative is that president obama was

lying about the sequester. after all it's been in place for a month now and the sky hasn't fallen much that is wrong for two reasons. number 1, nobody ever said the sequester would all happen right away, immediately. it's going to take time for all of those cuts to kick in. but second reason is wrong is because serious impacts of the sequester are already being felt across the country. huffington post just published 100 examples, including 175 workers fired from an army garrison in rock island, illinois. 280 workers furloughed at an international guard base in syracuse new york, cuts in headstart, in cincinnati laramie, wyoming and new jersey and the list goes on and on. the sequester, in other words is already inflicting real pain on real people. and that's clear to anybody in touch with the real world. >> that's the problem. white house reporters are not part of the real world.

have a good day, folks. see you back here again tomorrow. >> this is "the bill press show."