requested media kurtz. k" i'm howard kurtz. we're back here next week with your latest buzz. well, are they in or out? we're waiting to find out if democrats will participate in the new select committee investigating the attack in benghazi. let's take a live look at capitol hill. that's where speaker john boehner, well, he's named the republican lawmakers now who will serve on that special panel, but at this moment it is not yet clear if democrats will even take part or if they will boycott that panel all together. hello, everyone. happy mother's day. welcome to america's news headquarters. i'm eric shawn. >> agreat to see you here.

trey gowdy was joined as the benghazi special committee chairman and he's shooting down fears that the investigation into the deadly attack will not be bipartisan. >> i have no friends to reward and no foes to punish. we're going to go wherever the facts take us. facts are neither republican nor democrat. they are facts, and if we overplay other hand or engage in a process that's not fair according to the american people, we will be punished. >> i hope trey is going to stay true to what he just said. the rules, however, will determine if this is a fair process, not what trey says. it's whether the rules for the conduct of the hearing will provide for a fair, open and balanced proceeding. >> a former prosecutor promising lively hearings. steve centanni from the newsroom. >> reporter: it's a political showdown over the terror attack in benghazi that claimed four lives. ambassador chris stevens was among those who was killed.

the white house has called it both a terror attack and a demonstration over an anti-muslim video. republicans want to find out whether the administration tried to downplay the terror aspect for political reasons just ahead of the presidential election. republicans say they need a bipartisan select committee to investigate, especially in light of a recently released whout white house e-mail the gop calls a smoking gun. >> when it comes to this issue of benghazi, what happened was so appalling that people simply want answers. we don't take it likely. security threats are nothing to take likely, in benghazi, in libya, when the events happened, this was a highly volatile time. >> former secretary of state hillary clinton is among those who have testified on capitol hill about the benghazi attack. democrats say there have been enough hearings already, and the republicans only want a campaign issue to fire up the base for the mid-term elections and beyond. democrats are debating whether

to participate in what they call a show trial. >> we've participated in all the other seven investigations. if it's a fair, open and balanced process, absolutely. what we don't want to see is reckless and irresponsible use of congress and taxpayer money to do these witch-hunts. >> republicans have already announced the members of that select committee. democrats so far have not decided whether they will participate so we'll wait and see. eric, back to you. >> waiting for that, thank you, steve. we'll have much more on this investigation into the benghazi attack. still ahead in a few minutes from now we'll examine how the special slept committees plan to keep the proceedings fair. >> pro-russian separatists holding referendums on they is significance of two regions in ukraine. turnout is high despite the government and the west rejecting the votes as illegal.

a report from donetsk, ukraine. >> reporter: leave hours left in voting in this controversial referendum in eastern ukraine, a busy and hectic day. here's a little bit of what we could the. >> the ballots for this ren referendum vote in self-rule are brought over there and brought over to the transparent ballot boxes where we can get an early unofficial poll. the dahs or yes have it. in fact, there are a lot of regular aspects to this poll. it's based on old electoral rolls. if you're not on the list, can you vet anyway. no international observers around and many stations were overwhelmed and the wording on the ballot is vague. yes can mean anything from greater autonomy to breaking away from kiev or joining us with russia. those not agreeing are staying away from the polling stations we were as though showing up with some pretty strong words to give to us.

this is all done, of course, in an atmosphere of violence. security at the polling stations we were at was visible. not far away we found some heavily armed militants. government regions in this building remain occupied by pro-russian activists and while the day here went pretty much peacefully clashes were reported between ukrainian military and other rebels at other locations. voting was blocked at certain places and some threats were mailed at polling stations. first results are not expected until tomorrow, and then we will see the reaction. we're already hearing from one of the see separatist leaders here and he's already sounding like he wants to set up another country here, and we'll also be waiting to hear from russia. vladimir putin has been playing a very careful game in the last few days about the volatile voting here. back to you, heather. >> greg palkot streaming live for us. eric, you now have more on this. what can we expect from the results are in tomorrow? joining us now is former united states ambassador to the u.n.,

john bolton. he's also a fox news contributor, senior fellow at the american enterprise institute and he joins us on the telephone. ambassador, what will this referendum achieve, if anything? >> well, i think it's part of the russian effort to destabilize ukraine, to undercut the upcoming may 25th presidential election, to demonstrate support for the russian view in the heavily culturally russian areas in eastern ukraine and, therefore, implicitly across the southern part of the country as well. if there's no doubt that there's a lot of irregularities in the connection procedural with this referendum. the point is it's a political one, and it appears that the russians are making it very strongly. >> vladimir putin, you know, he came out publicly wanting to postpone this. was this just for show? >> yes, of course. putin is a great actor and the septembertists listened to him and then they were going ahead

with it anyway and he said i tried, i'm not doing it. i don't have control over these people. putin underlined what he's really trying to do a couple days ago by going to the crimea which russia recently annexed on victory day and that was the real signal that people wanted. he's on the move and the west is on the retreat? >> is he on the move elsewhere and how will this affect tensions there? separatists saying they want to form their own country and the ukrainian military, kiev, continues to battle back and that's why we've had the deaths so far. >> that also contributes to the instability, and i think that's what putin is want. he's trying to negotiate the outcome he wants before the may 24 elections, and if he can't get that, i would view it likely it a he can't, he'll try to delegitimize elections, through the military clashes that people say it's impossible to have a free and fair vote or through

the so-called referendums that he's having or through continued activity by the separatists. again, putin has a game plan. he's following through on it. the ukrainian government is having trouble getting its act together and the west, sadly, is largely absent from the picture. >> so you're saying if the elections do not go putin's way, it could get worse. >> i think it will, because he'll say the elections have no meaning. he won't recognize the results of them and the turmoil and the instability in the ukraine will likely continue. on today's election president obama threatened sanctions if they went ahead and indeed they went ahead anyway. now we'll see what the united states and europe do about it. >> do you think there will be tougher sanctions, don't seem to have achieved anything so far. >> the sanctions so far have been very weak and ineffective. whether president obama is capable of doing more, we'll have to see. he's threatened more sanctions. threatened more sanctions before and hasn't followed through. >> meanwhile the russian deputy

secretary was in the modesta area, and the russian official had signatures coming for moldova and transnistria to join him. did you think that putin was going to use that for propaganda and try to move so moldova and take over that conflict. >> well the transnistria confli conflict has held over since the end of the first bush administration in 1991-'92 and i think it's another place where putin could agitate and it's a foreshadowing of what could happen in all of the soviet republics, and you have to love it when an apparatchik goes to a place like transnistria and come back with boxes of petitions and these people have real chutzpah,

and they continue to display it. again, we may not like the outcome or what the russians are doing, but they are on the move and we are not. >> the russians on the move, we are not says ambassador john bolton. ambassador, always good to talk to you on the telephone this morning. thank you very much. >> thank you, eric. >> heather. >> speaker john boehner talking to sunday morning futures anchor maria bartiromo about lois learner and the irs targeting scandal. congress voted to hold her in contempt week for refusing to answer questions, and this morning speaker boehner spoke about why he will not issue an arrest warrant for lerner. >> there's a provision in the constitution that has never been used, and so that's a -- i'm not quite sure that we want to go down that path. >> so you're not looking to do that. >> no, it's never been used. >> why not? >> i'm not the historian here,

but it's never been used. i'm not sure that it's an appropriate way to go about this. >> speaker boehner adding that -- what to do about the contempt charge is in the hands of attorney general eric holder. >> coming up in just a matter of minutes, a small town nearly demolished completely in just a matter of minutes. we'll have the details on that devastating tornado that have some of the victims there today saying we're lucky to be alive. >> and more on that international help that is on the way to find hundreds of kidnapped schoolgirls in nigeria. as we get firsthand accounts from some of the girls who managed to escape. >> when we got to the bush, they asked us to get out of the cars. when the other girls were coming out of car, i told my friend that it is better to be killed than to be taken to a place we do not know. okay, listen up! i'm re-workin' the menu. mayo? corn dogs? you are so outta here!

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well, people in a small missouri town are now starting to clean up after a devastating tornado tore through their community. take a look at scene in orrick, missouri. that tornado damaged about 80% of the city's buildings, ripping off the roofs of some homes, uprooting trees and completely destroying some trees and knocking down power lines. one survivor described the utter chaos. >> i pulled up, got the kids out down in the basement and then literally like two minutes after that, we were all down in the basement and everything started happening. >> we were all just relieved that everybody is okay, and we made it out and we can replace our things. can't replace our lives. >> police say that the residents were able to do the right thing. they had about 15 minutes of warnings to take cover before that tornado hit. thankfully and miraculously there were no reports of any injuries. >> turning our attention back to benghazi now.

as washington waits to see if democrats will participate in a special select committee, the chairman, south carolina congressman trey goudy is telling fox news what he hopes the investigation will accomplish. >> i want a process, chris, that at the end of it you are welcome to draw different conclusions from the fact, but i want everyone to say it was fair, it was exhaustive, and we know more than we did when it started. >> joining us now for more is michael warren, a staff writer of "the weekly standard." thank you for joining us. >> thanks, heather. >> we just heard gowdy talking there, and he said at the end of all of this he wants to be able to say it's fair, it was exhaustive and we know more now than we knew before, do you think that's possible, and if so how? >> the republicans better hope that they can do that because democrats, whether they are in the white house or you heard from "fox news sunday" on capitol hill are trying to make this investigation and select committee about a crazy, you

know, going after conspiracy theories, that sort of thing, that nobody serious has any more questions about benghazi so trey gowdy has sort of a thin wire to walk here and making sure that he's not allowing for his committee members in his party to go off on any sort of conspiracy theories or go off on any wild good chases and stick to the facts. i think goudy is probably the best person in the conference to do that which is why speaker boehner told him and not darrell issa who the leadership in the house republican party has clashed with a little bit on some of these oversight hearings. >> so we know what the republican members will be who will sit on this select committee. don't even know at this point if democrats will participate. what happens if they choose not, to and in your opinion is it best that they do so? >> well, it's probably best for the country, and it's post for finding out exactly what happened if the democrats get

involved. something that seven democrats in the house voted to form so if you're looking for democratic members to put on the committee, you've got seven to choose from but from the democrats' own political perspective it might be better to not to, a bunch of republicans, again, goes right into their playbook of saying the republicans are doing something partisan and something crazy, not actually for the truth. they are just trying to bring down this president, but i would hope that democrats would say, just as howard baker did during the watergate hearings, that there's something bigger than partisan politics here and we need to know the truth. >> and public opinion consistently shows that people want to know more, they want more answers especially in reference to the latest e-mails were released that the gop is calling a smoking gun. >> i would probably say the republicans should stay away from phrases like smoking gun because they sort of suggest that that's it, that that's the only information we need, and as trey gowdy said at the ginning, this needs to be

exhaustive. this investigation needs to be sort of figure out everything that we don't know. >> michael, we have only 30 seconds left yet so i want to ask you. there's been seven investigations so far. do you truly expect the special select committee will u.n. cover any additional or new information that we don't already know? >> well, hopefully if the -- if the witnesses and the evidence is cooperative, they can find out more exactly what happened in those days, who was arguing about which intelligence to go forward with in bringing this case to the american public on that sunday show that sunday rice blamed a video and not what intelligence did show was a terrorist attack, a coordinated terrorist attack, so hopefully they can find that out. we'll have to wait and see. >> hillary clinton to the family members of the dead americans said to them in person don't worry. we'll get the man who made the video, so we'll see what happens. thank you, michael warren. we appreciate it. thanks >> the kidnaps schoolgirls in

nigeria taken by the its mist terrorists, they are still missing, and now more international help is on the way. what the u.s. is doing to try to help bring those girls home straight ahead. plus, they say he was drunk which is why he was rescued from a very famous roof. the iconic structure he became stuck on. we'll have that next. >> what is that? .yea dulcolax tablets can cause cramps but not phillips. it has magnesium and works more naturally than stimulant laxatives. for gentle cramp free relief of occasional constipation that works! mmm mmm live the regular life.

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sail which is part of the iconic design of the crew. rescue crews worked for an hour to convince the man to come down. he eventually decided to do so with the help of a harness and some ropes. international assistance is now on its way to nigeria to help search for the nearly 300 schoolgirls who were taken by the islamic militants. among those send to help a team of u.s. hostage negotiators, and today nigerian christians prayed for the abducted girls as they all wait for news on their safety. more from our los angeles bureau with the latest on this continuing horror. >> it's quite amazing how swiftly this outrage is spreading around the world and tanz formi-- transforming into worldwide movement. in the big apple mayor bill

de blasio put us very succinctly like this. >> it's one thing to fight a political fight, but don't go after those young innocents and put them in harm's way. and voices of conscience all over the world are standing up. >> in nigeria itself we're hearing from military experts that boca haram, who kidnapped the girls back on april 15, have started laying land mines in the nigerian jungle in anticipation that foreign special forces may move in to try to rescue the girls and also take out the boko haram militants and there's another concern that because there's so much girls there could be food shortages which may force them into taking desperate actions and with the british, the french and the united states sending in counterterrorism and

intelligence agents, the pressure really is on now is whether the u.s. will really send in special forces. >> all right, dominic. the world waits and prays. >> thanks so much. heather. >> still to come, do you pop an aspirin maybe to safeguard against heart problems or a stroke. aspirin's benefits have long been touted and now the fda says not so fast. their new warning about aspirin coming up next, eric. [ male announcer ] hands were made for playing. legs, for crossing. feet...splashing. better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. if you're trying to ma, now may be time to ask about xeljanz.

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dominique wilkins, are taking charge of their type 2 diabetes with non-insulin victoza. for a while, i took a pill to lower my blood sugar, but it didn't get me to my goal. so i asked my doctor about victoza. he said victoza works differently than pills, and comes in a pen. and the needle is thin. that may improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. it is not recommended as the first medication to treat diabetes and should not be used in people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. victoza has not been studied with mealtime insulin.

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which may cause kidney problems. if your pill isn't giving you the control you need, ask your doctor about non-insulin victoza. it's covered by most health plans. i'm heather childress. time now for "sunday house call." >> around i'm eric shawn. joining us as he does every sunday, dr. marc siegel from langone medical center and author of "unlocking the secret code of sickness and health". >> and dr. david samadi, chairman and professor of urology at lennox hill hospital and chief of robotics surgery. >> good to see you. >> a lot of topics to get to today. the first topic, the world health organization declaring