there is still an opening for russia that they're leaving at this time. there is debate whether or not that opening should be there. we'll bring you the president's remarks as soon as he begins. but first right now breaking news on today's top headlines brand new stories you see here first. jon: high drama expected in "the blade runner" murder trial. will oscar pistorius take the stand in his own defense? senate majority leader harry reid standing firm on a decision not to push back the obamacare deadline. what that could mean foredemocrats in november. forget spring, we're tracking a new snowstorm for you. it is all "happening now." jon: and we will get back to our top story "happening now" in just a moment. hello to you, i'm jon scott. >> hi, everybody, i'm jenna lee. we're awaiting a joint news

conference from president obama and dutch prime minister. it is expected to begin any minute from the hague in the netherlands. as we see the president walk out. a lot of questions about the top i can that is will be covered and a lot of concern what might be said about the crisis in ukraine. we'll listen to the opening remarks and questions will follow. >> -- by preventing nuclear terrorism that was president obama's goal when he made nuclear security an international priority in 2009. we have taken a big step in that direction here in the hague. i'm proud to present our hague nuclear summit communique to you today, building on progress we made earlier in washington and seoul, this communique sets the bar even higher. we have taken major steps towards meeting all three main objectives of the nss process. i will say a few words about each of them. the first objective is to reduce the amount of dangerous nuclear material in the world. the less dangerous nuclear

material there is, and the better the nuclear security, the smaller the chance that terrorists will be able to get hold of it, it is that simple. that is why i am pleased that the 53 countries and four international organizations here have confirmed their commitment to continue reducing stocks of dangerous nuclear material. highly-enriched uranium and plutonium and a number of countries announced the intention to hand over highly-enriched uranium in the u.s. where it will be downgraded. as chair of this summit i natural welcome this announcement. we're also making progress on the second objective, improving the security of nuclear and other radioactive material. we have affirmed our ambition to -- nuclear materials that can be used to make nuclear weapons and security of radiological source that is terrorist cost be used to make dirty bombs of. the commitment of the nss became more concrete in this matter.

scale of panic and fear a dirty bomb doesn't bear thinking about and not to mention the possible disruption to sigh i. we're riding the scope of the nss process to include this area. furthermore the nss countries have encouraged implementation of the ieaa nuclear security guidelines. a significant number of us have decided to take this commitment even further. as chair of this summit i'm delighted to announce -- jon: nss, the nuclear security summit. that is what president obama is doing in the netherlands right now. we are awaiting the president's remarks. there will be a full-blown news conference we understand. we expect to hear a great deal about russia's invasion of and annexation of crimea. we'll wait for questions about that and hear the president's opening statement when he takes to the microphone. chief white house correspondent ed henry is traveling with the president. he is live from the hague. ed? >> reporter: jon, good to see you. what is interesting, let's not forget crimea is 1600 miles from

where the president is standing right now. he is pretty close by. yesterday the president gathered the gleaders and one of the moves they made was basically suspend russia from the group of eight and russia is kind of brushing that off, well, we don't really care much about that and still pushing ahead. there are 20,000 russian troops on the ukrainian border right now. they said it's a military exercise and they will not invade. as you know they already invaded crimea saying they weren't going to do that and annexed it officially. bottom line there is lot of nervousness in this region. so the president's goal at this news conference to reassure the european allies that the u.s. will be there for them in russia decides to start taking more territory in the neighborhood. the second thing to look for might be this nsa story, the surveillance program, that is under great scrutiny not just the u.s. but here in europe. remember it was learned that the nsa had listened in on phone calls from german chancellor angela merkel. that created a lot of controversy here.

the story broke overnight that the u.s. is going to be moving the holding of the phone data away from the nsa to the telephone companies. that had been signaled previously but sort of making it official now. the president likely to be asked about that. and likely a chance for him to pivot away from that scandal to try to reassure these european allies that the u.s. is trying to clean up and reform the surveillance programs because frankly he needs these european allies, he is pushing them to institute tougher sanctions against russia. the european allies haven't gone as far as the president has in terms of those sanctions because some of these european countries are concerned, jon, if they attack the russian economy, since it is a global economy it will blow up in their faces and boomerang on a still recovering european economy. the president has a tough task to reassure allies what russia is up to and get them to come up with tougher sanctions, jon, some of the nations represented there and folks in the neighborhood are clearly

concerned whether russia has designs on bigger chunks of europe. >> reporter: absolutely and that's why the criticism back in the u.s. you heard from republicans against the president has been that he has been weak on the world's stage. he hasn't been standing up to vladmir putin. you heard the pushback, i anticipate we'll hear it from the president when asked about i but you heard pushback from democratic senators defending the president, look, george w. bush was on military footing in iraq and afghanistan during his administration and vladmir putin still moved into the republican of georgia and took territory there. under the bush administration. there is lot of back and forth on this we'll hear all bit, jon. jon: the president is speaking now, ed. let's isen in. >> with your indulgence before i speak a little bit about this summit i would like to say a few words about a tragedy that recently took place back in the united states. over the weekend a massive landslide swept through a tiny town called oso in washington state. while i won't get ahead of the ongoing response and rescue

operations we know that part of this tightly-knit community has been lost. first-responders acted bravely despite still-dangerous conditions. the american red cross has opened multiple shelters and people of washington state have been quick to help and comfort their fellow citizens. i spoke to governor inches lee who -- inslee who declared a state of emergency. i signed the declaration of emergency to make sure he has all resources he needs. my administration is in contact with them on ongoing basis and fema and army corps of engineers have been on sight to offer their benefit and expertise. i would ask all americans to send their thoughts an prayers to washington state and the community of oso and families and friends of those who continue to be missing. we hope for the best but we recognize there is a tough situation. now, as for our work here in the hague, i want to just repeat the

extraordinary work that mark has done in helping to organize this. king alexander and the people of the net he they are lands, your hospitality has been remarkable. your organization has been flawless, to all the people who were involved in putting this together, including those who were putting up with the traffic that cause, i want to say thank you. i'm told there is a dutch word that captures this spirit which doesn't translate exactly into english but let me say that my first visit to the netherlands has been truly, hosellic. i convened the first nuclear security summit in washington four years ago because i believed that we need a serious and sustained global effort to deal with one of the greatest threats to international security and that's the specter of nuclear terrorism. we made further progress at our

second summit in seoul and under your prime minister's stewardship we built on that progress here. in keeping with the spirit of these summits this was not about vague commitments t was about taking tangible and concrete steps to secure more of the world's nuclear material so it never false into the hands of terrorists and that's what we've done. in particular i want to commend belgium and italy for completing of removal of their excess supplies of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium so those supplies can be eliminated. in a major commitment japan will work with the united states to eliminate hundreds of kilograms of weapons usable nuclear material from one of their experimental reactors. that is enough for a dozen, for dozens of nuclear weapons. dozens of other nations agreed to take specific steps towards improving nuclear security in their own countries and to support our global efforts. some have pledged to convert

their research reactors to low-enriched uranium which can not be used to make a bomb. we net new goals for implementing our nuclear security measures including sharing more information to show we're all living up to our commitments. i made it clear that the united states will continue to do our part as well. our nuclear regulator will develop new guidelines to strengthen cybersecurity at our nuclear power plants an we pledged to pursue the production of a key medical isotope to treat illnesses like cancer without relying on weapons usable material. we're also going to work with our partners around the world to install more radiation detection equipment at ports and transit sites in order to combat nuclear smuggling. all of this builds on our previous efforts. 12 countries and two dozen nuclear facilities around the world have now rid themselves entirely of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium. dozens of nations boosted security at their nuclear storage sites or built their own

counter smuggling teams or created new centers to improve nuclear security and training. the international atomic energy agency, or the iaea, is now stronger and more countries have ratified the treaties and international partnerships at the heart of our efforts. so we've seen a fundamental shift in our approach to nuclear security but as mark indicated, we still have a lot more work to do to fulfill the ambitious goals we set four years ago to fully secure all nuclear and radiological material, civilian and military, so it can no longer pose a risk to any of our citizens. i believe this is essential to the security of the entire world and given the catastrophic consequences of even a single attack, we can not be complacent. i'll close by reminding everyone that one of the achievements of our first summit in 2010 was ukraine's decision to remove all its highly-enriched uranium from its nuclear fuel sites.

had that not happened, those dangerous nuclear materials would still be there now. and the difficult situation we're dealing with in ukraine today would involve yet another level of concern. so it's a vivid reminder that the more of this material we can secure, the safer all of our countries will be. we made progress. we've got more to do. we're going to continue our work and i look forward to hosting the fourth nuclear security summit in the united states in two years. so, thank you again, mark, and all your team as well as the people of the netherland for this outstanding summit. >> thank you, mr. president. we'll go straight to the questions now and first question will be julie pace, associated press. >> thank you, mr. president. you've been criticized during this dispute with russia as not understanding president putin's motivations of the as recently as last month you and others in your administration said you thought putin was reflecting or

pausing his incursion to crimea. did you misread putin ace intentions and what do you think his motivations are now? if i could quickly ask on nsa, when you spoke about the nsa review in january you said you weren't sold on the option of having phone companies hold metadata and you thought it raised additional privacy concerns. what changed for you on that matter since that time and do you think congress will pass the legislation you're seeking? mr. prime minister, there are leaders in europe who have concerns about the sector sanctions that the president has proposed on russia's economy. do you think any of those leaders had their concerns alleviate the with talks with the president over the past few days? thank you. >> all right. let me see if i can remember all these. with respect to president putin's motivation i think there has been a lot of speculation. i'm less interested in motivation and more interested in the facts and the principles

that not only the united states but, the entire international community are looking to uphold. i don't think that any of us have been under any illusion that, you know, russia has been very interested in controlling what happens to ukraine. that is not new. that's been the case for years now. that's been the case dating back to the orange revolution. but, what we have said consistently throughout this process is that it is up to the ukrainian people to make their own decisions about how they organize themselves and who they interact with and it's always been our belief that ukraine is going to have a relationship to russia. there is a strong, historic bond between the two countries but that that does not justify

russia encroaching on the ukraine's territorial inintegrity or sovereignty. that is exactly what's happened. and i said very early on that should russia do so there would be consequences and working with our european partners and our international partners we have put in place sanctions that have already had some impact on the russian economy. now moving forward you know, we have said and i want to be very clear about this, we're not recognizing what happened in crimea. the notion that a referendum sloppily organized over the course of two weeks would somehow justify the breaking off of crimea and the annexation by russia that somehow that would be a valid process i think the overwhelming majority of the

world rejects. but we are also concerned about further encroachment by russia into ukraine. so what i announced and what the european council announced was that we were consulting and putting in place the framework, the architecture, for additional sanctions, additional costs, should russia take this next step. what we also said, and we'll continue to say is that there is another path available to russia. the ukrainian government has said it is prepare to negotiate with russia. that it is prepared to recognize its international obligations and the international community has been supportive of a diplomatic process, that would allow deescalation of tensions, a moving back of russian troops from ukraine's borders, and

rapidly organized elections, that allow the ukrainian people to choose their leadership. and my expectation is that if the ukrainian people are allowed to make their own decisions their decision will be they want to have a relationship with europe and they want to have a relationship with russia and this is not a zero-sum game. and i think that prime minister yatsunek and the current government have shown remarkable restraint and are prepared to go down that diplomatic path. it is now up to russia to act responsibly and show itself to be once again willing to abide by international rules and international norms and if it chooses to do so i think there can be a better outcome. if it fails to do so there will be additional costs and those will have some disruptive effect to the global economy but they

will have the greatest impact on russia. so i think that will be a bad choice for president putin to make but ultimately he is the president of russia and he is the one who is going to be making that decision. he just has to understand that there's a choice to be made here with respect, even though this was directed at mark, i just want to address this issue of sector sanctions. so far what we've done we put in sanctions that impact individuals, restricts visas being issued to them, freezes their assets. we have identified one bank in particular in russia that was well-known to be the bank of choice for many of the persons who support and facilitate russian officials from carrying out some of these activities but what we've held off on are more

broad based sanctions that would impact entire sectors of the russian economy. it is not just been my suggestion but it has also been the european counsel's suggestion that should russia go further, such sectoral sanctions would be appropriate and that would include areas potentially like energy, or finance or arms sales or trade, that exists between europe and the united states and russia. and, what we're doing now is, at a very technical level, examining the impacts of each of these sanctions. some particular sanctions would hurt some countries more than others. but, all of us recognize that we have to stand up for a core principle. that lies at the heart of the

international order and that facilitated european union. and the incredible prosperity and peace that europe has enjoyed now for decades. and so although it could cause some disruptions to each of our economies or certain industries, what i've been encouraged by is the firmness and the willingness on the part of all countries to look at ways in which they can participate in this process. our preference throughout will be to resolve this diplomatically but i think we're prepared, as we've already shown, to take the next step if the situation gets worse. finally on ukraine i think it is very important that we spend as much effort on bolstering the economy inside of ukraine and making sure that the elections

proceed in an orderly fashion and so my hope is that the imf is able to complete a package for ukraine rapidly to stablize their finances and their economy. the osce, other international organizations are sending in observers and monitors and we're providing technical assistance to make sure the elections are free and fair. the sooner those elections take place, the sooner the economy is stablized, the better positioned the ukrainian people will be in terms of managing what is a very challenging situation. with respect to the nsa, and i will be just brief on this, i said several months ago that i was assigning our various agencies in the ic, the intelligence commune, to bring me new options with respect to the telephone database program.

they had presented me now with an option i think is workable and it addresses the two core concerns that people had. number one, the idea of government storing bulk data generally. this insures that the government is not in owe session of that bulk data. i want to emphasize once again that some of the dangers that people high both size when it came to bulge data, there were clear safeguards against but i recognize that people were concerned about what might happen in the future with that bulk data. this proposal that has been presented to me would eliminate that concern. the second thing, the people were concerned about is making sure that not only is a judge overseeing the overall program that also a judge is looking at each individual inquery that is made into a database and this new plan that has been presented

to me does that. so overall i'm confident that it allows us to do what is necessary in order to deal with the dangers of a terrorist attack but does so in a way that addresses some of the concerns that people had raised and i'm looking forward to working with congress to make sure that it, we go ahead and pass the enabling legislation quickly so that we can get on with the business of effective law enforcement. >> on ukraine, let me make it absolutely clear that the european union and the u.s. and yesterday we saw alignment within the g7, we're working very closely together and i can fully support all the answers which you just gave, just given on the request you asked. maybe i can add one thing which is highly, effect to the russian economy is very much gas and oil

dependent and that means that economic sanctions, if they will be necessary and we are not there yet, if economic sanctions will be necessary, because the conflict would escalate to a next stage, if this were to happen, these sanctions would hit russia very badly. and obviously you can never guaranty that the people in europe and in canada, in the u.s., would not be hurt. but obviously we will make sure that we will design these sanctions in such a way that they will have maximum impact on russian economy, not european, canadian, japanese or american economy. that is our aim to work very closely together and we seek total alignment on this issue. thank you. >> next question. >> this is for president obama on ukraine. reportedly there are about 30,000 russian troops on the border with ukraine.

what guaranties can you give to the people of eastern ukraine, to the people in the baltic states, mole diva, other countries, that they will not be next when it comes to the russian politics of annexation and with regard to that also, is this a done deal? is there any doubt in your mind that putin will return crimea to where it belongs according to the west? or is this diplomatic show of force basically just to prevent another land grab somewhere else? >> on the second question first, on the issue of crimea, it's not a done deal in the sense that the international community by and large has not recognizing the annexation of crimea. obviously the facts on the ground are that the russian military controls crimea. there are a number of

individuals inside of crimea that are supportive of that process. there is no expectation that they will be dislodged by force and so what we can bring to bear are the legal arguments, the diplomatic arguments, the political pressure sure, the economic sanctions that are already in place, to try to make sure that there is a cost to that process. but, you know, i think it would be dishonest to suggest that there's a simple solution to resolving what has already taken place in crimea. although, you know, history has a funny way of moving in twists and turns and not just in a straight line so, you know, how the situation in crimea evolves in part depends on making sure that the international community stays unified in indicating that

this was an illegal action on the part of russia. with respect to the russian troops that are along the border of ukraine at the moment, right now they are on russian soil and if they stay on russian soil we, we oppose what appears to be an effort at intimidation but russia has a right legally to have its troops on its own soil. i don't think it's a done deal and i think russia is still making a series of calculations and again, those calculations will be impacted in part by how unified the united states and europe are, and the international community is in saying to russia this is not how in the 21st century we resolve disputes.

i think it is particularly important for all of us to dismiss this notion that somehow russian speakers or russian nationals inside of ukraine are threatened and that somehow that would justify russian action. there has been no evidence that russian speakers have been in any way threatened. if anything, what we've seen are provocateurs who have created, you know, scuffles inside of ukraine but, when i hear analogies, for example, to kosovo, where you had thousands of people who were being slaughtered by their government, you know, it's a comparison that makes absolutely no sense and i think it's important for everybody to be clear and strip away some of the possible excuses for potential russian

action. with respect to the broader issue of states that are bordering russia and what assurances do they have about future land grabs as you put it, obviously you know, some of those countries are nato countries and, as nato allies, we believe that the cornerstone of our security is making sure all of us, including the united states, are abiding by article v and the notion of collective defense and you know, what we are now doing is organizing even more intensively to make sure that we have contingency plans and everyone of our nato allies has assurances we will act in their defense against any threats. that's what nato is all about and that's been the cornerstone

of peace in the transatlantic region now for several generations. so we will uphold that and there will be a series of nato consultations, a nato ministerial will be coming up in which we further develop and deepen those plans but i have not seen any nato members who have not expressed a firm determination with respect to nate owe members. now, those -- those border countries outside of nato, we will do with what we're doing with ukraine and make sure there is sufficient international pressure and a spotlight shined on the situation in some of these countries and we're doing everything we can to bolster their economies. to make sure through various diplomatic and economic initiatives that they feel supported and they know that we stand by them but when it comes to a potential military response, you know, that is

defined by nato membership. that is what nato's about. >> john karl from "abc news." >> mr. president, thank you. in china, in syria, in egypt and now in russia we've seen you make strong statements, issue warnings that have been ignored. are you concerned that america's influence in the world, your influence in the world is on the decline? and in the light of recent developments, do you think mitt romney had a point when he said that russia is america's biggest geopolitical foe, if not russia, who? and, mr. prime minister, do you think that these sanctions will change vladmir putin's calculation or cause him to back down? and do do you see, where do you see a russian red line where if they go any further, if they go into eastern ukraine into moldova, where options beyond sanctions have to be considered? thank you.

>> well, jonathan, i think, if the premise of the question is that whenever the united states objects to an action and other countries don't immediately do exactly what we want, that that's been the norm, that would pretty much erase most of 20th century history. i think that there's a distinction between us being very clear about what we think is an appropriate action, what we stand for, what principles we believe in versus what is i guess implied in the question that we should engage in some sort of military action to prevent something. you know the truth of the matter is that the world's always been messy and what the united states has consistently been able to do and we continue to be able to do

is to mobilize the international community around a set of principles and norths and where our own self-defense may not be involved we may not act militarily. that does not mean that we don't steadily push against those gores that is would violate those principles and principles that we care about. so, yes, you're right, syria, the syrian civil war is not solved. and yet syria has never been more isolated. with respect to the situation in ukraine, we have not gone to war with russia. i think there's a significant precedent to that in the past. that does not mean that russia's not isolated. in fact russia is far more isolated in this instance than it was five years ago with respect to georgia and more isolated than it was certainly during most of the 20th

century when it was part of the soviet union. the point is that there are always going to be bad things that happen around the world and the united states as the most powerful nation in the world understandably is looked to for solutions to those problems and what we have to make sure we're doing are, that we are putting all elements of our power behind finding solutions, working with our international partners, standing up for those principles and ideals in a clear way. there are going to be moments where military action is appropriate. there are going to be some times where that's not in the interests national security interests of the united states, or some of our partners, but that doesn't mean that we're not going to continue to make the effort or speak clearly about what we think is right and wrong. that is what we've done. with respect to mr. romney's assertion is our number one

geopolitical foe, the truth of the matter is that, america has got a whole lot of russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness. ukraine has been a country which russia had enormous influence for deck -- decades, since the breakup of the soviet union. we have considerable influence on our neighbors. we generally don't need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them. the fact that russia felt compelled to go in militarily and lay bare these violation of international law indicates less influence, not more. and so my spoons -- response

then what i continue to believe today, which is russia's actions are a problem. they don't pose the number one national security threat to the united states. i continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in manhattan, which is part of the reason why the united states is showing its continued international leadership, has organized a forum over the last several years that has been able to help eliminate that threat in a consistent way. >> there is no geopolitical conflict where it can be solved without the united states. and therefore i am, applaud the fact that president obama's administration is acted in every arena. ukraine, iran, syria,

middle east peace process and so many other parts of the world. take the initiatives state is taking in the middle east peace process. i was in the region in december. and i spoke with leaders in the israel and palestinian territories and they're extremely grateful for the fact that america is providing leadership. this is difficult issue. can't be solved overnight. there is no magic wand which can handle this but progress is being made. take iran. i spoke with president rouhani at the economic forum in january. we have a -- i was able first dutch leader in over 30, 40 years, which spoke to an iranian leader, president rowhani. because it was possible because of the interim accord and seems it is holding. america provided leadership there. so i really applaud president obama's role in all these major issues. and it is necessary because the united states is the leader of the free world and needs to provide the leadership. and he is doing that.

on your question about president putin, i can not, very difficult to exactly judge what is happening in the senior leadership in moscow, in russia at this moment but as i said earlier a highly undiversified like the russian economy which is so much oil and gas dependent, which has not invested in infrastructure, invested in other areas of its economy, it will be worried if there is a risk in the financial sector or in weapons or in trade or indeed in energy, that there could be potential sanctions that will hurt them. that's what i said earlier we have to design sanctions that will particularly hit russia, not europe, u.s., canada or japan. that is what we're working on and we hope we won't need them. on the red lines, i can not envisage this conflict ending up in a military conflict. i don't think it is likely. i don't think anybody wants it. and at the same time i totally agree with president obama's answer on article v where this conflict will be taken to the borders of one of the nato

countries. luckily at this moment not the case. >> final questions. >> mr. president, you met at love leaders here. many were angry about the nsa story. have you fixed the relationships with these leaders? and the second question is, many are shocked by the extent of which the nsa collects private data. today we read in the "new york times" that you plan to end the systemic collection of data of americans. but can you address the concerns of the dutch and the rest of the world with our privacy? >> well, first of all we have had a consistent, unbreakable bond between the leaders of europe over the last several decades and, it is across many

dimensions, economic, military, counterterrorism, cultural, and so, any one issue can be an irritant in the relationship between the countries but it doesn't define those relationship and that continues to be the case and that has been the case throughout the last couple of years. as i said in the speech that gave earlier this year, the united states is very proud of its record of working with countries around the world to prevent terrorism or nuclear proliferation or human trafficking or a whole host of issues that all of us i think would be concerned about. intelligence play as critical role in that process. what we've seen is that, as technology has evolved, the guidelines and structures that constrain how our intelligence agencies operated have not kept pace with these advances in

technology. and, although you know, having examined over the last, over the last year, year-and-a-half, what's been done, i'm confident that everybody in our intelligence agencies operates in the best of intentions and is not snooping into the privacy of ordinary dutch, german, french, or american citizens. what is true is that there is a danger because of these new technologies that at some point it could be abused and that's why i initiated a broad based review what we could do. there are a couple things we did that are unprecedented n my speech i announced that for the first time under my direction that we are going to treat the privacy concerns of non-u.s. persons as seriously as we are the constraints that already

exist by law on u.s. persons. we're doing that not because we're bound by international law but because ultimately it is the right thing to do. with respect to some of the aspects of data collection what i've been very clear about there has to be a narrow purpose to it, not a broad based purpose but rather based on specific concern around terrorism or counterproliferation or human trafficking or something that i think all of us would say has to be pursued. and. what i try to do is make sure my intelligence teams are consulting very closely at each stage with their counterparts in other nations so that there's greater transparency in terms of what exactly we're doing, what we're not doing.

some of the reporting here in europe and as well as in the united states frankly has been pretty sensationalized. i think the fears about our privacy in this age of the internet and big data are justified. i think the actual facts, people would have an assurance that if you are just the ordinary citizen in any of these countries that your privacy in fact is not being invaded on but i recognize that pause of these revelations there is a process taking place where we have to win back the trust, not just of governments but more importantly of ordinary citizens and that's not going to happen overnight because i think there's a tendency to be skeptical of government and to be skeptical in particular of u.s.

intelligence services. and so it's going to be necessary for us the step we took, that was announced today, i think is an example of us slowly, systematically, putting in more checks, balances, legal processes. the good news is that i'm very confident that it can be achieved. and i'm also confident that the core values that america has always believe in, in terms of privacy, rule of law, individual rights, that, that has guided, you know, the united states for many years and it will continue to guide us into the future. >> thank you very much, everybody. thank you again. >> okay, ladies and gentlemen -- jenna: the president and the prime minister holding a news conference there covering a wide range of issues. really the focus being on the

crisis in ukraine. some interesting comments from the president when asked by the associated press whether or not he misread vladmir putin, he said he is less interested in the motivation of vladmir putin but the principles that the international community is looking to uphold. he echoed that by saying there is a continuance to examine additional sanctions on russia. what those sanctions are we don't know. what is interesting to note that the dutch prime minister piped in and said, yes, we're looking at additional sanctions to hurt russia, specifically the oil and natural gas sector but we are concerned about hurting the rest of europe. ed henry mentioned a very interesting point at the beginning of our broadcast today. he said the distance from where the president is speaking in the hague to crimea where the russians are is roughly 1600 miles. that is the same distance, more or less, between new york city and austin, texas. so you can imagine just geography matters here and how much europe is really dependent on russia for some of their economy for oil and gas is a major concern.

the other thing that wanted to touch on the president mentioned is the notion of collective defense. in many ways he is hoping that the international community comes together and confronts russia together. there was an interesting editorial in the "wall street journal" about that and i want to talk about that with michael singh, the former senior director of middle easten affairs at national security council and managing director of the washington institute. overall, michael what did you think the president had to say on ukraine and russia? what do you think is the main message put forward? >> well i think the signals you clearly get out of this news conference as well as some of the previous statement, jenna, basically this conflict reached somewhat of a standoff. that we will impose new sanctions only if russia takes further steps but that otherwise the conflict is essentially frozen in place and now we're in a sense focused on the long game, you know, on showing russia there's been a price for their actions in crimea, on bolstering the ukrainian government. i do think, jenna, also there

was this dichotomy between a sort of principles and norms-based approach president obama was putting forward and then the sort of more action-oriented approach some of his critics have been calling for. i think in jenna, a large part it is a false dichotomy. you need to take actions to create incentives and disincentives to support the types of norms and principles president obama was talking about. jenna: what do you mean by that? >> what i mean, jenna, you take a country like ukraine, remember, president obama is there in the netherlands at a nuclear summit trying to convince countries to give up nuclear weapons and nuclear materials. if you want countries to support that norm which benefits our security here in the united states, well you need to show them, for example, that aggression by countries like russia, big countries, won't go unchecked. it won't go unpunished. you need to show those countries you're willing to sort of bolster their security in other ways whether economically or through direct assistance and those are things we haven't

really done with respect to this ukraine crisis. instead we've said, you heard the president saying well, essentially america's interests are not directly threatened here. there is disconnect, jenna, between trying to promote this norms and principles approach and lack of action to really incentivize countries to support us. jenna: a mixed message perhaps on the stakes. saying essentially this doesn't really matter to the united states as a priority but we still are going collectively together against russia. i wanted to ask you about that. this issue of collective security. it was a topic ironically of an editorial board, editorial from "the wall street journal" and what it mapped out taking a look at nato. if you look at all of nato's countries the membership, countries most of big ones cut defense spending including the united states which is the majority of nato. the question becomes, michael, if russia decides and it is their decision to go into some other country militarily is nato really prepared to match that aggression? >> well, it's a good question,

jenna. we obviously have a treaty commitment to our nato allies. i would sincerely hope we uphold the security commitments there is truth what you're saying in terms of capabilities, not just in europe but also if you look what is happening in asia where you have the territorial disputes for example, the south china sea, very concerning situation going on there there is a question in the mind especially of allies, that will the united states or the west more generally step forward to participate in their defense, even through things like providing security assistance? often times, jenna, we draw this kind of false choice between doing nothing and going to war. well there is a lot in between those things. providing military equipment, you know, stationing troops in more forward locations and so forth. even those steps are things which we are not so eager to do but also may be constrained from doing by these budgetary decisions we're making. again i think signals that we're sending in how we're approaching this ukraine crisis are not the

ones that will support these notions our allies can depend on us or will support the norms and principles president obama is talking about. jenna: certainly a lot there we'll be diocese being what the president had to say. analysis on next several hours of coverage of fox news. michael, thanks for shepherding us through the instant reaction. thanks for being here on the program. >> thank you, jenna. jon: there was this little disthat president directed at vladmir putin. we'll get into that. a deadly shooting at a u.s. navy base. a u.s. sailor gunned down. the lone suspect also killed. what we're learn about this attack. we're live on capitol hill where senate majority leader harry reid seems to be standing firm on his decision not to delay the obama sign-up deadline of the impact it could have on the upcoming midterm elections next. i bought a car, over and tells you, and you're like. a good deal or not. looking at truecar.com. there's no buyer's remorse.

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jon: do you have your obamacare yet? just days to go until the sign-up deadline and some democrats are hoping to push back the approaching enrollment deadline. senate majority leader harry reid though, apparently not one of them. he is standing firm on his decision to keep the deadline at march 31st. so, will his decision backfire on vulnerable democrats this november? joining us now, ellison barber, a columnist at the "washington free beacon." why is he standing firm? >> i sort of look at this i think it is sort of a catch 22 for democrats. on one hand if they don't take you the bill passed by some red state democrats, they don't take it up you will have republicans saying why don't you take up the bill that will help the american people? if you do take it up you're saying what the republicans have been saying they were right. i'm not surprised that he wouldn't take it up. i think they don't see it as something they need to do.

they're fine to keep the deadline to march 31st. the president recently thought he had enough people enrolled in the risk pool. i think at love democrats do believe that. they don't see this as necessary action. jon: they're kind of whistling past the graveyard? trust us, eventually you will get to like the obamacare thing and it will all work out and great for your political careers? >> i think so. particularly a lot of people saying this will be good and democrats will run on this people like nancy pelosi, harry reid, maybe they will run on it and do well in their districts and states. jon: nancy pelosi, can run in that district until she is dead and she will never lose. >> so they have a little bit of misconstrued, misconstrued view on things. i think a lot are saying it will work in my district fine it should work as well. that will not be the case in people like landrieu and hagen. jon: and senator jeanne shaheen could face a challenge in new hampshire. one sponsoring legislation. >> she is increasingly vulnerable with scott brown throwing his hat in the race.

she feels pressure shush that will be a candidate, any strategists says scott brown will be good candidate for republicans. she was vulnerable before. when you put a candidate that increases vulnerable. she is pushing back and treading back a little bit on affordable care act. at end of the day for at love democrats this is something they initially supported. i don't know if they can really get over that when it comes down to vote. they have a solid few years of them being on board. jon: you will watch it, reading about it in the "washington free beacon." ellison barber, thank you. jenna. jenna: jon, more time lost lost in the search for flight 370. bad weather forces searchers to turn back. more challenges on finding the reported wreckage, next.

jon: noon on the east coast and we begin with a fox news alert. we're waiting a news conference on efforts to find more survivors in the deadly mudslide in washington state. the death toll now officially at 14.

more than 100, though, still reported missing. many people are hospitalized. this massive slide devastated a small town about 50 miles north of seattle over the weekend. we will monitor the news conference, bring you any new developments as we get them. in the meantime, malaysian officials under fire for handling of the missing plane. welcome to the second hour of "happening now." jenna: and china is now demanding malaysia turn over satellite data that caused them to conclude the boeing 777 crashed in a remote area of the indian ocean with no survivors. today's search is called off because of bad weather. malaysian officials say that a u.s. navy deep sea black box locator is now headed to australia to find the plane carrying 239 people on board. grief for the families is now turning to ang he were as chinese relatives protest outside the malaysian embassy in

beijing. protesting what they call a lack of reliable information and many of these relatives say they're just not being told the whole truth. it's been more than two weeks since the plane disappeared and not a trace of this plane has been found. our guest is live with the latest and that's causing families a lot of anger, william. >> well, jenna, a crash is a reasonable conclusion at this point but the airline has no evidence to back it up so yesterday relatives erupted in shouts and tears after hearing some by text message their loved ones were likely dead.

>> some accuse the government of a coverup and officials say in australia they will waive any visa fees for those who want to be closer to the search. thousands of chinese are calling for a boycott of malaysian products and they want the data turned over. jenna: certainly looking for answers especially for those families affected. when the search does resume, what is the priority? >> so you got two investigations. one is a criminal investigation into the pilots and the passengers. the other is really the hunt for the airliner as the australian defense chief said today, quote, we're not searching for a needle in a haystack because we're still trying to find the haystack. so not only have the conditions down there terrible, gale force winds, heavy rain, low clouds, indian ocean currents are extreme and unpredictable. debris can move 75 miles in a single day so even when an

object is spotted by satellite or airplane, there's no certainty where it will be the next day. for instance, to he will straight the erratic conditions down there, researchers dropped dozens of rubber ducks in the southern ocean in the same spot simultaneously with g.p.s. locators. days later the ducks were hundreds of miles apart. what it means is even if they find debris from the flight, trying to track it back to the point of impact is a monumental task. >> it is a very, very difficult task and i cannot tell you this deployment that you can see behind me and all the aircraft that i've known is probably one of the largest you'll ever see in maritime environment and joint operations. >> so basically, even though there are prevailing currents, every piece of that plane can go into different directions so isolating where this went down, where the black box likely is is going to be as much luck as it is science. back to you. jenna: we have more on that

coming up. thank you. jon: it is hard to describe how massive an area of the ocean, really the planet they are searching and even if they find parts of the plane, we might be left without enough information to know exactly what happened to this airliner. let's bring in ken, aviation analyst and president of i understand grated aviation solutions. also with us, the managing partner of aviation weekly. the mystery continues, seth. they think they know where this plane went down but nobody has any idea yet why and it could be a long, long time before we find the black boxes and even then we might not know. >> a very long time, jon. five years ago aircraft flight 447 crashed off brazil. we knew more or less where it went down. we saw debris that was certainly associated with that plane crash just a few days later along with some bodies from it and yet it took nearly two years to find the wreckage at the bottom of

the ocean right below that. here we're still looking. not for something in the size of the united states but let's say the state of texas. it's daunting. and worst of all, jon, let's say we somehow find that needle in the hay tack after first finding the haystack. the cockpit voice recorder, if we find it, would only have the last two hours of the flight which would be after the incident began. if there was one person acting alone in the cockpit, we literally might not hear a word on that cockpit voice recorder. it's so daunting, all of it. jon: what about the way this has been handled by malaysia? there's been so much misinformation and then finally when they conclude that the flight is in the water, that there are no survivors, they send out a text message? what about that? >> text message, really? i could not believe that when i saw that. clearly, the prime minister is

not going by the normal protocol for missing aircraft or aircraft that had been in an incident. this is well rehearsed protocol of all the airlines know what to do and i don't know who is advising the prime minister but that was handled horribly. jon: a guy that i know who is a pilot, a commercial pilot, long time freight flier, mechanic just kind of an aviation genius all the way around says everything that he sees is consistent with some kind of a very fast burning fire on board in the belly of the airplane that may have taken out the wires to the trans ponder, maybe even before the pilots knew they had a problem, that they then turned around, tried to head back, tried to find a place to land and were overcome by smoke before anything of the kind, before they could make it back to safety. does that fit the scenario the

way you see it? >> you really have to thread a needle with a very small eye to get to the conclusion that this plane would have continued flying for so many hours in a situation like that. now, certainly there's precedent. we've heard lately about the crash where there was an aircraft travelling another four hours after everybody lost consciousness but in this case, there's quite a bit of evidence that somebody was at least in some control of the plane. so why they would have continued flying so many hours instead of trying to get it on the ground somewhere, the preponderance of the evidence is that somebody tried to cut off communication and somebody was in some control of this aircraft. certainly impossible to rule anything out. you can make the case for a lot of scenarios right now because we're missing so much information but more likely that somebody commandeered this aircraft. perhaps one of the two pilots, some incidences over the years, not too many but where you have one pilot lock another out of

the cockpit and crash the plane. jon: how confident are you that eventually they'll be able to find this plane and the black boxes? >> i am confident that they will. how they map the bottom of the ocean with the air france crash, they're going to -- that's going to be a very similar parallel. now, it will be a larger area because of the debris field has been floating for so long. but the navy has put marker buoys in the water to see where the drifts are and i am -- it's going to take awhile but i am confident they will solve this mystery. jon: they had a pretty good idea where air france went down and it still took a few years. we have to leave it there. thank you both. jenna: as we've been reporting, our best hope of finding the malaysian airliner black box seem to be the u.s. navy's locator and we did some research on this very interesting tool that most of us are learning about. it was most recently deployed after the crash of the air france jet in the atlantic ocean

in 2009. the system helps find emergency relocation equipment. the length is 30 inches, weighs about 70 pounds and can go to a maximum depth of 20,000 feet anywhere in the porworld. it can detect pingers that transmit an acoustic pulse. that's what will take place when they resume the search again. right now a tense situation at a u.s. naval base in norfolk, virginia. u.s. sailor gunned down late last night. the suspected gunman shot by police responding to the scene. apparently the gunman did not have his own weapon but took it during a struggle when he first entered the bates. for more on that, steve is in d.c. >> still a mystery where a civilian employee of norfolk tried to board a navy ship and killed a sailor. this led to the shooting death of the suspect himself.

authorities are investigating and details are still sketchy but here is what the base commander said earlier today. >> approximately 11:20 p.m. last night there was a shooting at pier one. security forces responded and secured the scene. after reports of shots fired, naval station put on lockdown as a precautionary measure. a lockdown lasted approximately 45 minutes. >> this happened aboard the guided missile destroyer mahan. according to navy officials, a man tried to board the ship. suspect seized the gun from the petty officer, then used that weapon to shoot a sailor who responded, who was only trying to help. the security personnel then shot and killed the suspect. norfolk is the largest navy base in the world covering 6,000 acres. it's the home port of 64 different ships and more than 60,000 military and civilian

people are assigned to the base. this comes only six months after the fatal shooting at the washington navy yard. the shooter in that case was a civilian contractor who killed 12 workers before being shot to death. this latest shooting coming just a month after security exercises were conducted at all u.s. bases, including at norfolk. jenna: thank you. jon: white house is busy as the deadline to enroll in obamacare gets ever closer but could the president's signature law hurt democrats in november? a fair and balanced d obamacare impact on the midterm election. also a new warning about a key ingredient in the controversial e-cigarettes. still ahead, details on a substance that has poisoned hundreds of people. @e@8ñúñ÷@

jon: just in, president obama

wrapping up a joint news conference overseas with dutch prime minister. the president making his -- this comment, we're creating a lot of buzz right now. take a listen. >> russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness. ukraine has been a could note in which russia had enormous influence for decades, since the breakup of the soviet union. and we have considerable influence on our neighbors. we generally don't need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them. jon: so russia is no longer a super power. jenna: and that was in response to john carl. john carl is the white house correspondent for abc news and he asked the president, do you think your leadership and that

america's influence is waning in the world and is mitt romney -- was mitt romney right when he said russia was our number one political -- geo political foe? so the president had a little bit of a reaction to that and that was his answer to call russia a regional power that really does not threaten the united states. jon: and he did not like the reference to the romney challenge. jenna: didn't seem that way, no. jon: polls show obamacare is not sitting well with the majority of americans. republicans are hoping they can translate that into a big win for themselves in november. a growing number of respected political analysts say that could happen. as for democrats in congress, this could be a case of deja vu. the hill newspaper reports obamacare's affect on the 2010 congressional elections saying, quote, obamacare helped catapult representative john boehner to

the speakership of the house and demolished hundreds of democratic careers. democrats now face the prospect of a second midterm drumming in 2014. and the health care law is even more unpopular than it was the last time around. joining us now is an associated editor and columnist at the "the hill" and david is also with us, senior correspondent for the "washington examiner." if people dislike obamacare so much, why did the president get reelected in 2012? >> well, that's an interesting question. i think the very popular portions of the law came online first, keeping children on their parents' policies through the age of 26, a lot of preventative

medicine-free, preventative care, stuff that released from preexisting conditions for coverage, this kind of thing. but the real, you know, obamacare as we know it is only a few months old and that, if you combine the troubled rollout with the fact the consumers are not happy, they're finding they have less choice and they're paying often more than they thought they would, it's really just head winds against the democrats for now, year five, of defending this law. so you're looking according to the polls and the estimates if the election were held tomorrow and a terrible election for democrats, largely based on the unpop layerity of the law, it could be popular years from now. it's just not clear that's going to happen before november. jon: so people are reacting to the effects of the law now, david. >> that's correct. and as i've told you before, this is the first implementation election really.

2010 was about the fear of the law, dislike of the process and 2010 people had gotten it out of their system, nothing much really changed but now we're seeing some real changes, some real effects on the health care system and so far, people don't like what they see and they don't like what it's done to their health care plans. and you also have the -- if you like your plan, you can keep it coming into play. and so i think that's why democrats are krael in a tough spot heading into november. the law is not going to collapse under its own weight. at least not this year. the fear of that happening for democrats and the price they've paid is not something they have to worry about. but the idea that they're going to profit from this in a midterm elections is so far just not something we're seeing. jon: one of the top democrats in the house had just a press event where he said, it's ours, referring to obama kair.

we think it's ours. we need to sell it. if you feel guilty, people are going to think you are guilty. so all they need to do, i guess, is go out and sell this thing better, tell people why they should be happy about it. >> democrats are trying to obviously, like i said, defend this after five tough years from the time that it was written, debated and then passed into law and then through this implementation, it's been very tough for them and there is a big percentage of democrats who are obviously in safe seats who say we have to own up and tell people why life would be so much harder without it. and that's -- that sounds good but democrats are very worried about the result of the special election in florida's 13th district where alex sink was not specific about how the law might be repaired. jon: florida makes democrats nervous. that's for sure. >> yeah.

i think a lot of democrats think they need to get more specific about repairs. jon: thank you both. >> thanks a lot. jenna: president just mentioned in a news conference his number one concern about our number one security is a terror attack in manhattan. a jury today made up of civilians is deliberating in the trial of osama bin laden's son-in-law. this man faces charges in relation to his help in supporting terrorism. he faces life in prison. the jury just received instruction and they can deliberate until about 6:00 p.m. tonight. if they come to a verdict, judge wants it by 4:45 today. we'll see nine women, three men have the fate of the man on your jean there in their hands. we'll get you updates as we can from the courthouse in manhattan. mayo? corn dogs? you are so outta here!

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gas. they're not really going to mean very much because china can undermine them with all their purchases. jenna: so china is key for russia to maintain economic power which would also be key to russia maintaining regional power as the president just said in europe. >> and also the important thing is you've got to remember that vladmir putin's grab of crimea attacked china's fundamental principle of foreign policy. yet the chinese don't criticize him. when they talk about this issue, they support russia by opposing sanctions. that's a signal of real partnership between moscow and beijing. jenna: why would china want russia to succeed? >> i think it's because moscow and beijing see themselves as opponents of the u.s.-led international system and the chinese admire vladmir putin because he's a tough guy and he stands up to obama and the chinese secretly admire that. there's a real durable

partnership forming. a lot of people say these two countries will not form a lasting relationship but they are. since 2001, we've seen moscow and beijing work together on so many issues. syria, iran, north korea, you name it. jenna: what's their goal ultimately? china's support of russia, what is really in it for china? >> china wants russia to support many of beijing's niinitiatives. you know, basically beijing wants russia to support it and actually ping has talked about russia and china acting together in east asia to form basically a duo to oppose the united states and japan and south korea. jenna: if they're opposing us and we've seen them do this, so now they're becoming a major customer of russia for their oil and gas, they were and continue to be a major customer of iran despite sanction so they've

subverted a lot of our efforts on the international stage. what sort of actions should we take against china? >> we need to change our paradigm of relationships with china. we have to understand they're opposing many important things they're trying to do in the world. what we need to do is impose costs. imposing costs, we need to impose costs on the chinese. chinese are doing things that are worse than what vladmir putin has been doing and yet we don't want to talk about it because we're afraid of angering the chinese. if we're afraid of angering them, the chinese say we can push the united states around. jenna: they're empowered by that. >> they're emboldened by this. and you know the bad thing about it is that we're actually helping this. we're a conspirator in this. we have so much more power over the chinese than they do over us but we're sort of saying we can't have a problem with the chinese so the chinese take advantage of that. that's why i think that we would have right now a very bad situation. two large authoritarian states.

it says 2014 on the calendar but this looks like 1938. jenna: interesting. we'll have to leave it there today. always great to see you. thank you. >> thank you. jon: close to a billion dollars a year spent to train t.s.a. agents to detect suspicious body language. but next, you'll hear why a growing number of researchers say the practice doesn't actually work. plus it's the main ingredient in e-cigarettes. why is liquid nicotene described as a powerful neuro toxin? the stunning health warnings that you should know next. and they are used to target terrorists overseas. now questions about the use of drones by law enforcement in your neighborhood. a push to stop that from happening. stay with us. @zvf

jon: the debate is heating up about the use of drones right here in the united states. drones are already used to gather intel and kill suspected terrorists overseas but they've become increasingly common here at home and lawmakers are struggling to come up with a way to regulate them. rick joins us live with more. >> for a couple of hundred to a few thousands dollars, you can own a drone like this one. lawmakers are scramble to go regulate unmanned aircraft, mostly to preveent snooping or the arming of drones. only 13 states currently have drone laws. most of these laws focus on lawn

enforcement, requiring a warrant before drones can fly but 35 states are debating new legislation, including six states that already passed restrictions and want more. in connecticut lawmakers are krapting a bill to forbid flying unmanned aircraft. increased penalties for private citizens in cases of stalking or voyeurism. >> number one concern for everyone is privacy, right? this kind of technology, while it has incredible uses, if abused it can be accused in very detrimental ways. >> only 11 police departments nationwide are authorized to use drones. 28 more are training to obtain certification but deploying the machines could be nearly impossible because of all the rules. miami dade police department has had a drone program for three years but still hasn't used the two t-hawks because state law says the drones can't fly at night in high winds above 300 feet, near high rises or over

populated beaches or crowded rooms and they need a real pilot at the controls with an observer watching. >> we're here to provide a service and as law enforcement we're going to work within the scope of the law and our policies. obviously we would like to see some of the laws or some of the restrictions loosened for the sake of public safety. >> f.a.a. is working on new rules for thousands of commercial drones expected to be in the air the next few years but for now, it's pretty much wide open out there. jon: it's crazy. i had no idea there were that many of them. jenna: where did that drone go? is it somewhere in the studio? >> it flew away. snoip it's scary when you have those tools out there. i trust you, rick, but just you. jon: the t.s.a., speaking of monitoring -- jenna: and we'll move to that now. the t.s.a. spends about a billion dollars to screen suspicious passengers at the

airport but there are new questions about how effective the technique really is. in fact, a growing body of research shows very little success detecting people's lies based on eye movements and body language. the t.s.a. defends the program saying it identified high risk passengers at a significantly higher rate than just random screening but the government counters that saying that fewer than 1% of those identified were arrested and what they were arrested for really wasn't terror related. can you actually read somebody's body language? nicholas is a behavioral science professor at the university of chicago and author of the book "mind wise, how we understand what others think, believe, feel and want" which would be great if we can all do that. just in general, how good are humans in reading other humans? >> well, we're better than chance. that's for sure. so i can tell often better than chance levels whether you're lying or telling the truth.

i can tell your emotions just by looking at you and guessing what your emotions actually are. data suggests over and over again whatever that level is, however good we are, we're not quite as good as we think we are. jenna: we're having a conversation about this in the editorial meeting about who of us actually can read somebody else's body language and it's interesting. of course, i think i'm really confident in that but the truth is i never tested it before and that's what brings us to this article, really, is can you actually train someone to be better at it, to read somebody's behavior and know they're a bad guy or a good guy? >> the data suggests not very well. so there are a couple of problems. one is that we think that our emotions leak out of our bodies, in our body language more than it actually does. so darwin suggested that your emotions leak out through your faces. most of us intuitively believe that's right. freud thought it's through your

fingers but the data doesn't support our emotions leak out with our bodies as much as we think, particularly when we're trying to deceive somebody. but we have a lot of faith that it, in fact, does. but there's also not a whole lot of evidence to suggest that training makes people significantly better across the board at being able to detect whether someone is lying or telling the truth from their body language. jenna: what about that gut instinct, that feeling you get when you're around somebody and you have a strong sense about them? is that accurate? can you trust your human instincts on that? >> again, what you want to know is what is the comparison standard? your gut instincts are sometimes better than chance. gut instincts get you right about 54% of the time when chance is 50%. a little better than chance but notice, much less than 100% accuracy. so trust your gut instinct but just a little bit. jenna: over the years do you think you've gotten better in this, in reading other people? >> i think i have and mainly

because i'm much more likely to ask people what they think. there's no magic in it. i can't look at your left earlobe or eyebrow in just the right way. what i can do is ask. if you're telling me the truth or not, and that's a good way of figuring out whether someone is lying. jenna: let's say the government calls you up and say, professor, we're investing a billion dollars in a program. what would be your response to government? we're looking for your advice, professor. what should we do with that money? >> well, i think the way you find out whether someone is telling you the truth or not is they really tell you. that's it. i don't think that's going to happen in airport security lines if somebody is trying to deceive you or sneak something onto the plane, they're probably not going to tell you they're doing that. i think that money is probably better spent in looking at people's bags rather than hoping their beliefs will leak out

through their behavior. jenna: i think we all learned something. we just need to ask a little bit more. professor, thank you very much. >> thank you. jon: so meanwhile, what is russian president vladmir putin thinking? he's flexing his muscles in ukraine. can america stop his power play in eastern europe by boosting energy production here at home? we'll get into that. plus the death toll prizes in a terrible mudslide in washington state as the urgent search for survivors go on. stay with us. i think she tried to kill us. [ sighs ] are you kidding me? no, it's only 15 calories. [ male announcer ] with reddi wip, fruit never sounded more delicious. mmm. [ male announcer ] with 15 calories per serving and real cream, the sound of reddi wip is the sound of joy.

jenna: the president said we're discussing potentially additional sanctions in russia after russia an necked crimea. it's important to remember how much leverage russia has in ukraine and really throughout europe when it comes to the economy and that leverage is russia's natural gas supply. at any moment, really, and they've done it before, russia could flip the switch and leave millions of people in the dark

and cold. many lawmakers in the u.s. say it's time for us to open the floodgates in our own ports to start exporting natural gas to weaken vladmir putin's influence when it comes to energy. what would it take for the united states to make up the flack? let's bring in the oil trader and senior market analyst and joe, i've seen a bunch of different time lines. that would it take for the united states to be a factor in this market? >> you know, pro energy policy, obviously this is something the united states really should have done years ago. you know, it's very short sided on the u.s.'s part and one of the main reasons that vladmir putin went into crimea in the first place was because he wanted to continue his dominance over european natural gas supplies. one of the biggest concerns was that in the ukraine, in crimea, they were talking about developing their own supply. you know, using u.s. technology like fracking to reduce their dependence on russian gas.

vladmir putin didn't want that to happen. it's one of the reasons he moved him to the ukraine and he was betting that the united states wouldn't do anything about it because we can't even approve a pipeline from canada, let alone natural gas. jenna: the pipeline is key to natural gas exporting. i was reading in the "wall street journal" another gas terminal has been okayed in oregon but it would take several years for it to be up and running. so the idea that u.s. oil exports would give europe some sort of special buffer is silly. they were talking about oil and natural gas. they said that's just a drop in the bucket. we wouldn't be a major player. do you agree with that? >> i don't agree with that. the bottom line here is that if the u.s. started to export oil and natural gas, we would be a major player and it would reduce the temptation by a guy like vladmir putin to cut off supplies in the middle of winter. we see the same situation with opec. everybody said the u.s. won't

produce enough natural gas and opec thought they would cut off supplies. guess what happened? after they did, we used less natural gas and opec was taught a lesson they will never forget. russia may have overplayed it. if this unleashes the united states energy product potential on the world, it could really damage russia's economy. you know, and really, we should have saw this coming. russia has shown many times before, it will use energy as a political weapon. it's done it before. jenna: instead of ukraine. >> yes. it's done to ukraine, yugoslavia. jenna: and it's in the middle of the winter, by the way. millions of people are impacted by it. let me ask you this. give us some time lines of two, three, five years to be an exporting power when it comes to natural gas. what do you think is the most accurate time line? >> well, we're going to have some terminals up in 2018.

if we can staff frack some of these terminals, it will take five or six years to build the terminals but the sooner we get started, the bigger threat it is. energy product, that's a very short time frame. it's not like that long. it will send a message to vladmir putin because vladmir putin really believes that based off the obama's administration policy, he thought it would take forever. jenna: let me ask you about that. there's the actual material hitting the market, right? natural gas hitting the market and us being a player but then there's the expectation that it's coming. and with the expectation that it's coming, would that cause an impact in russia and prices around the world almost immediately? >> it will. especially when you look at the back end of the futures contracts and the way people sign contracts. even today, the threat of u.s. imports are actually impacting how eastern european nations are

negotiating with gas problems today. they're saying, why should i sign a long term contract with you when i'll be able to get natural gas cheap from the u.s. in a couple of years? they're already using that as leverage to get a better deal with the state owned company with russia. they were already feeling the impact even though it could be years away. jenna: very interesting. thanks for the conversation. it's been a topic of conversation and we appreciate your expertise as always. jon: the prosecution has rested in the oscar pistorius murder trial. olympic runner trying to convince a judge he shot his girlfriend dead because he thought she was an intruder. will he take the stand in his own defense? we'll tell you what his lawyer just said. also e-cigarettes. they are supposed to help smokers kick the habit but could they be doing more harm than good? deadly ingredient they contain next. (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade

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jon: there's a troubling new health warning about the key ingredient in e-cigarettes. it's liquid nicotene and it's a highly toxic substance. it's already been linked to more than 1,300 accidental poisonings. researchers say just a tablespoon can kill an adult and it's readily available online and also not well regulated. warning comes amid the new debate about the effectiveness of new e-cigarettes. they do not actually help people quit smoking and may cause some people to take up the habit. professor of medicine at the nyu's medical center is a member of the fox news medical a-team. just like everything else, e-cigarettes haven't evolved.

originally they were dispose di but now you can refill them. it's led to a cottage industry and i guess it's bigger than cottage industry. >> i'm extremely worried about this. nicotene is a toxic, it's a.can get in through your skin. what you put in an e-cigarette is between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2%. but you can get up to 10% online. vapor world online is selling 10% in gallon containers for only $190. so, you know, you could get this and you could have a tablespoon, a kid could accidentally have it, someone could rub up again it. someone has rubbed up against it and ended up dying from it. it's a neuro toxin, can increase your heart rate, your blop, can make you vomit. it's really, really powerful stuff. jon: and apparently some kids, teens are using it and mixing it with sodas and other kinds of things and drinking that as a stimulant. >> it comes in bubble gum flavor

or cherry flavor and it's incredibly addictive and another thing, 80% of the teens that have used e-cigarettes are also smoking tobacco. so centers for disease control believes it's not only that helpful to quit smoking but also a gateway drug for young people. 12 states forbid minors to actually purchase these cigarettes but they get them anyway. from their parents or they get nem online and i think there's probably a small population in my practice and elsewhere with i can use e-cigarettes to help people quit. heavy smokers, there's a british study shows it may be as effective as a nicotene patch in certain select groups with a physician involved but the f.d.a. is not regulating this. not only there's a problem with e-cigarettes but you can buy the nicotene containers at high concentrations which are potentially deadly. bad stuff. jon: and there's no indication, at least according to some studies, that e-cigarettes work in helping people either kick

the habit or in prevening people from taking up the habit in the first place. >> as you tweeted out today, the university of san francisco has a study out this week that showed no effect using e-cigarettes helping people to quit. i actually think certain select heavy smokers may benefit from vaping where it takes the place of a cigarette in your mouth but it's got to be under control of a physician. it can't be something you do on your own. that's the problem. we're not involved. there's no regulation. f.d.a. says there's going to ramp up regulations soon. jon: and shipping that around the country in flavors like chocolate and bubble gum seems like a real danger to kids. >> it gets in through your skin. it's bad. jenna: a big controversy at the nuclear security you meanity nothing to do with politics as all. over who will be serving the food. why women are barred from serving lunch at the gathering. we'll explain. we'll try to explain coming up.

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well, get this, no women servers aloud. they are in charge of serving lunch underway in the hague. the decision sparking a fire storm on line. and the company defended itsac saying he was trying to create a uniform look. i am with you. women servers would have "spoiled the image. ". next year, we know that organize ares will not book a certain lunch spot if our leadership is distracted by female servers and they will not be going to hooters for lunch. >> and they could be distracted by female servers, what has the

world come to you. if that is a big obstacle. >> they ought to be able to walk and negotiate nuclear treaties at the same time. >> and have a woman server. >> thanks for joining us. >> america new's headquarters starts right now. >> thank you. fox news alert. president obama responding with his disagreement with mitt romney. and the russia being the top geofoe. >> with respect to mr. romney's assertion that russia is our number one geopolitical foe. the truth of the matter is, america has a lot of challenges. russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength, but out of weakness.