peter? >> in order to get things done, you need to take from some to give to others. that's what the health care bill is all about. just ask howard dean. >> really? >> when it gets out of wack as it has now, you need to do some redistribution. this is a form of redistribution. >> more on the fine art of redistribution. our slogan comes from john in ohio. john says monday is here. the weekend is past. time for "fox & friends" with the real news at last. good morning, john. good morning, america. >> live from studio e, welcome aboard. it is a soggy, rotten start to the day here in new york city. brian is off and in his chair, we've got peter johnson jr. good morning to you. >> good morning to you, peter and we have to start with some tragic news, fox news alert coming out of russia today. two deadly blasts rocked moscow's subway system during the jam packed rush hour.

officials say two female homicide bombers blew themselves up killing at least 36 people and wounding dozens of others. russian authorities suspect terrorism but no groups have come forward yet to take responsibility. the last time moscow's subway system was attacked was in 2004 kek kekian rebels to chechen rebels took credit for the bombing that killed 10 people. president obama is on his way home right now after making the surprise visit to the troops in afghanistan. it's his first trip there as commander in chief. how did it go? joining us from there, lieutenant colonel oliver north. good morning to you. >> gretchen, amazingly enough, most of these troops don't even know he was here. we're down in the southern part of the country. the message is good. that we're going to wait and make sure that we win. let me just show you some of those who are going to help make it win. right behind me, afghan national army troops going through mine

clearing and i.e.d. clearing training and one of those that's trained them, major richard harney, third battalion, 24th marines. you've been training these guys for sometime now. are they getting ready? >> yes, sir, we've had them for about eight weeks now. we picked them up from right out of boot camp, had the officers straight on of the officer candidate school and have been training them for the past eight weeks. doing an outstanding job. >> brought them down from kabul. >> yes, sir. took about a seven day trip. great experience with them. great partnering team with the marine corps and the afghan national army and it's been a good experience so far. >> not just americans either. we've got our british allies right here. major paul joyce is one of the mentor teams, are they ready? >> they will be by the time we finish. >> how long have you been here with them? >> we've had there for four days. we'll have them for three weeks. once they're finished, they'll be ready to deploy with the first armed forces and they'll

be the future security of afghanistan. >> what's the sense of the quality of the troops? >> outstanding, sir. >> that's how the war is going to be won. mentors and trainers and those who care for them so they can fight for their country. >> what a positive, upbeat attitude. thank very much for that. several suspects are due in court this morning after f.b.i. agents raided suspected militia compound in michigan, ohio and indiana. at least three people were arrested on gun charges when agents swarmed a number of homes. the target of one raid believed to be a christian militia group known as the hutari. this man is a member of a different militia graoup. >> they're convinced that the earth is in its last phase and they must rise up to rebuild a christian kingdom in the ashes of our country. >> more arrests could be coming. a lot of people concerned about this. former first lady barbara bush

in the hospital this morning. she was admitted to houston's methodist hospital this weekend. apparently to undergo routine tests after not feeling well. mrs. bush had heart surgery in 2009 for a narrowing heart valve and was also treated in 2008 for a perforated ulcer. >> look at the weather situation now. >> thousands of people are without power this morning after dangerous storms ripped through north carolina. at least eight unconfirmed tornadoes. eight touched down down there destroying dozens of homes much residents in high point, north carolina, say the twisters sounded like a freight train. that's what they always say and gave them little time to react. >> v-shaped cloud and it sounded like a freight train coming through. it was unbelievable. tracks flowing everywhere and it was about five foot off the gound. it was crazy. >> that was crazy. thank goodness, only a few people were hurt. when the sun comes up, they'll

assess the damage. 5 minutes after the top of the lawyer. glad we have a lawyer on the couch. we have a soundbite from david axelrod over the weekend and he went into what a number of democrats in the march toward health care was saying, that this bill will help kids with pre-existing conditions. listen to this. >> millions of small businesses this year will get tax credits for health insurance for their employees, kids with pre-existing conditions will get coverage for the first time. they won't be excluded anymore. >> that sounds terrific. however, according to "the new york times," peter, mr. attorney, it's not true. >> well, at least one lawyer and representative of the national insurance commission says that the promise that there will be coverage for children immediately with pre-existing conditions is not in fact true. and that these children may have to wait until 2014 based on the way the legislation is written

at this point. the legislation does not call for immediate what's called guaranteed issue. meaning that you must give it to the children right away. >> you got to get it by 2014, right? >> by 2014 but there was a promise by the president and a promise by the president's advisors and his people that this was going to happen as soon as the law was signed. it appears according to some lawyers and at least the view of the board of national insurance commissioners, that it's not unfortunately the fact at this point and that there will be litigation on this issue. the white house says they're going to try to correct it with some regulations but it appears not to be in the bill as written. >> it's the interpretation of the law in the sense that the insurance company are saying it's not cut and dry from our point of view so if you're the insurance company right now, would you pony up the money it's going to cost to cover these kids if, in fact, you don't

necessarily absolutely have to. i think that's what it's coming down to here. >> it's coming down to interpretation, yes, and it's kind of become almost an abbott and costello thing. tha there's a lawyer quoted in "the new york times." it should cover children covered in the policy but doesn't have to sell to somebody with a pre-existing condition so there's an issue with regard to access vs. whether you actually receive the benefits once you've received the access. they're saying access is not guaranteed at this point. and that same attorney that's reported said the insurer could then increase the premiums to cover the additional cost. in the meantime, democrats are really furious that the insurance companies are saying that their language is vague. how dare they do that? >> this next topic we'll talk about regarding health care because that's still the hot topic over the weekend. it reminds me growing up when my mom or dad will say eat that

broccoli. you'll really like it after it goes down. that's exactly how a lot of people feel about health care right now. at least the democrats are saying to the american public, half of which are against the health care reform plan, when you swallow it, you'll actually like it. even if it doesn't look good to you on the plate, i promise you that after that, you're going to like it. listen to this. >> as people learn what's actually in the bill, that six months from now at election time, this is going to be a plus. a parade of horribles, the average middle class person has will see it affects them positively. >> the more we're learning, like this thing in "the new york times," apparently insurance companies don't have to cover kids with pre-existing conditions. the more we learn, the more we realize maybe they slapped this thing together a little too fast. >> talking about broccoli and string beans, eating things we don't like, try it and you'll

like it. it seems based on the children's issue that one of the proposals, one of the parts of the law that most americans would, in fact, favor is not really in the law. >> that's right. >> and the subject of a court challenge. >> let's listen to howard dean. he's also a physician and he actually wanted democrats to vote against health care reform because he didn't think it was liberal enough. let's listen to how he feels about it now. >> gretchen, in a democracy, where does the right balance between those at the top or 20% of the people do most of the consumer spending and so forth and so on. and those at the bottom. i think it has -- when it gets out of wack as it did in the 1920's and it has now, you need to do some redistribution. this is a form of redistribution. if you redistribute too much then the system doesn't work because you take the incentive out of it. >> he was very clear, he said this is a form of redistribution where he's talking about the health care reform and a lot of people have said come on, it's not like that at all but we've

heard that from a number of people. and now lnindsay graham was on "meet the press" yesterday and said this whole thing looks like a poscheme. >> it's going to affect every business, every family in this country. it was done by one party rule and it was -- it was a shame we had to go down this road. >> yeah. >> what's going to happen in november? because a lot of people say can this health care steam roll situation all the way into november? will it affect who is actually elected or not? senator demint said we'll find out in november who won or lost. 60% of americans want republicans to fight and repeal this so many people will decide when they go to the polls. >> you know, howard dean -- governor dean, dr. dean, you know, prominent democrat is saying now what a lot of critics of the health care reform law said during the legislative

period and during the discussion over the past year, that it was in fact kind of a failed attempt to redistribute wealth in america. >> sure. >> and so it's interesting to hear him say that at this point. >> admit it? >> i guess he did admit it, i guess he did. >> barack obama said it was all about spreading the wealth. he said that in the campaign. >> with joe the plumber. now, let's talk a little bit about how you're reacting to all this stuff. what do you think of the president of the united states? it's interesting, the very latest daily tracking poll, gallup, that's every single day. man those people are something. look at that, the president is tied. half the country, or 46% of the country approves of his job. 46% disapproves of his job. >> that's significant today because last week, that approval number was 51% right on the same day that the president signed the health care reform bill into law. he went up to 51% but now, just one week later, it's back down to 46%. >> all right, we've been telling you the case of the three navy seals who are accused of

punching an accused terrorist in the gut and maybe bloodying his lip. it looks as if the case against the seals is weakening which cheers a lot of people who have been supporting the navy seals. apparently, they've given some immunity to some people who are going to -- colleagues of theirs, navy guys who are going to say, that simply did not happen. definitely did not happen. >> actually, and major general charles cleveland has signed grants of immunity for about five witnesses who will testify in a way that contradicts the prime witness on behalf of the government. >> who was a master of arms. >> master of arms. yes. and so it comes down to whether this most wanted terrorist, most wanted alleged criminal, in fact, was struck by navy seals and the defense attorneys are saying, listen, these folks are

trained to inflict harm on themselves and there was a bloody lip allegedly. >> probably bit his own lip. >> he may have bitten his own lip. >> very interesting case you can hear about here. coming up on our big, packed show today, late friday night, president obama made 15 appointments. wasn't he critical when president bush did the same thing? someone who remembers vividly, ambassador john bolden who was here next. he was a recess appointment. remember that? >> cops get quite a surprise at the end of this chase. wait until you hear who see who was behind the wheel. >> it's not brian kilmeade again? >> no. >> are you sure? ♪

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he was, in fact, a recess appointment. he joins us live from washington, d.c. good morning to you, mr. ambassador. >> good morning, glad to be here. >> i'm chuckling because i remember doing the show back then when you were a recess appointment and the democrats were so upset at that situation but how do you feel now when it's the reversal and it's turned on the republicans, so to speak and president obama does the same thing? >> well, i'm glad to see the president has grown in office and taken advantage of his constitutional prerogative. look, this is all about politics and if we lived in a less partisan washington, the rule would be that each presidential nominee gets an up or down vote in the senate. win or lose, you get the vote. when one side or the other blocks appointments, it's perfectly within the president's authority to use the recess appointment authority. and that's what's happened here. >> well, let's take a look at what then senator obama said regarding your recess appointment. said "not in the history of the united nations representative

have we ever had a recess appointment. somebody who couldn't get through a nomination in the senate and i think that that means that we will have less credibility and ironically be less equipped to reform the united nations in the way it needs to be reformed." that was then. this is now. sir? >> right. well, this is a graphic demonstration of the shoe being on the wrong foot at the wrong time. the fact of the matter is the senate democrats wouldn't give me a vote. >> that's right. >> they used a filibuster and i remember then senator biden, at the time, in a private meeting we had said look, if we had a vote on the floor, you'd win. you'd get 56, 57, 58 votes. so they knew exactly what the situation was and now the situation is reversed and i think it's entirely proper for the president to do this but it should put in context that this really is a political dispute and different presidents react appropriately when they face this kind of problem.

>> exactly. i want to make sure we can talk about this because iran is such a hotbed issue right now and i remember last week when the administration said that they were going to back down on some of the sanctions and i was scratching my head saying what? and then valerie jarrett, one of the top advisors to obama said this about iran yesterday. >> in fact over the last year, what we've seen when the president came into office, there was a unified iran. now we're seeing a lot of divisions within the country and we're seeing steady progress in terms of a world coalition that will put that pressure on iran so no, i think we have a strong force in the making and iran will back down. >> they will back down. 10 seconds, sir? >> well, that, i think, is exactly what the white house believes. i don't think she made that up. she's not a foreign policy person. that's the line they gave to say and it shows how desperately wrong and naive the obama administration is. >> all right. former ambassador to the united nations, john bolton, thank you, sir, for joining us on this soggy monday. >> thank you. >> you bet. >> coming up on the show, star from the show "law & order"

finds herself in the middle of a real life crime drama. why she was scared for her own life. >> you know the student loan provision that got swept into the health care bill, turns out there are some big benefits for democrat friends in there. details straight ahead. there are car radios... and then there is the voice-recognizing, text-out-loud-reading, turn-by-turn-direction- giving sync system... in the taurus from ford. sfx: ((sync beep)) please say a command. reamessage. highway 8 closed.

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>> couple of quick headlines for you on a monday morning. a small fire under control at a cleveland nuclear power plant. the fire at the perry nuclear power plant started where the water pump pulled off the reactor. at least one worker was taken to the hospital. a brazen casino robbery. 10 men armed with pistols robbed cashiers at a casino in the middle of a very busy weekend. there were no serious injuries but one guest was kicked in the head. the robbers wetook hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> a major overhaul of the

student loan market was packed into the health care bill. democrats say it will free up more money to help families put their kids through college but may be benefitting some of their nonprofit pals. here to explain is matt lewis, a columnist for palm fix daily. >> good morning, matt. >> good morning. >> what's the skinny on this? who is profitting by this massive change in how people are getting student loans? >> well, you know what's interesting, there was almost a sort of cornhusker kickback involved. for a while, there was a special exemption made for north dakota that was called the bismark earmark and essentially, it would have exempted north dakota and the bank of north dakota could have continued making these student loans. >> right. >> at the last minute, kent conrad, the senator got cold feet and decided to scrap it, that it's a bit of look too bad, look too much about what happened in nebraska. but right now, there's still some questions. essentially what happens is right now when the federal government makes a loan, they

bid bailout companies and banks to bid on who gets to service the contract, this new bill says that there will be no bid contracts going to certain nonprofits. it just so happens that some of the favorite nonprofits have ties to democrats. "the wall street journal" recently pointed out that one of them is based in california and it just so happens that the top lobbyist for this nonprofit is a contributor and personal friend of congressman george miller who happened to be the point man in the house. >> that's got to be coincidence, doesn't it, matt? >> well, again, who knows? you know, but it does -- it does kind of smell fishy especially when you consider number one, this bill -- most people didn't know this was happening. it snuck into the health care bill. >> stop there for a second. why this gigantic health care bill? and they are kind of on the fringe, the entire student loan industry for the united states

of america. just tacked on to it, right? >> exactly. this affects 19 million students across america and unlike health care, this really was a government grab in the sense that it is now going to be -- if you want a student loan, you essentially have to go to the federal government to get it. >> yep. >> and no one knew this was happening. it was done essentially in secret and the reason was that the health care bill, in order to pass the health care bill, they promised that it would be deficit neutral. and as you know, they did a lot of maneuvering including, you know, getting rid of something to make the numbers add up. one of the things that happened is the student loan bill is supposed to save around $61 billion fortunate billion. the truth is it's not going to save that money. but the c.b.o., that's the numbers they were given so the reason this was part of the health care bill was essentially to make these bogus numbers line up. >> matt lewis, thank you so much. very interesting issue. we'll see you next time. thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> all right. coming up next on this monday

morning, live from new york, homicide bombers murder 35 people in moscow. we go live there with the very latest. it's a grim situation. >> it's a bad story. then what is a v.a.t. tax? it's part of the president's health care bill. while you may not see it, you'll definitely feel it. >> that's all, folks. and cops relieved when this chase comes to an end. they were shocked when they found out who was behind the wheel of that s.u.v. you always end up with something delicious.

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>> welcome back, everyone. we start this half-hour with a fox news alert because two deadly explosions while you were sleeping hit moscow's subway system during the busy rush hour morning for them. officials say two female homicide bombers blew themselves up killing at least 37 people and wounding dozens of others.

dana lewis live for us now in moscow at the scene of one of the bombings. good morning to you, dana. >> good morning, gretchen. the first bombing occurred here just beyond the square. a train pulling into the station before 8:00 this morning, a female suicide bomber we're told in the second car set off about six pounds of t.n.t. as people were getting off the car and others were getting on to the car and there were people killed inside the second car and also waiting on the platform and then about 42 minutes later, just a couple of miles away from here, gretchen, at the park, another female suicide bomber in the third car of that station set off her bomb as well. so this station is very symbolic. it is in the heart of metro, i can tell you we're very close to the kremlin. we're very close to the russian parliament and symbolically it's right here underneath the federal security service building that's the home of the k.g.b. and one of the le

organizations that's been carrying on the fight against chechen separatists in chehnya. he believes the two suicide bombers are linked to the caucuses. back to you. >> all right. dana lewis reporting live for us out of moscow and reports here now in new york city today that, of course, there's going to be much more increased security for our subway system. >> they have tightened things indeed. another fox news alert, president obama right now heading back to washington after making a surprise visit to afghanistan. there he is in his leather air force one jacket. he spent six hours there telling troops how important their mission is and president demanded accountability to make good on their promises to reign in destruction. this as nato helicopter has crashed in southern afghanistan. no one died but all on board were evacuated for medical treatment. north korea making more threats against the u.s. and south korea

this morning. they're warning of deadly consequences in retaliation for what they're calling psychological warfare. the north has journalists touring the south portion of the buffer zone. between the two countries are preparing a smear campaign. this comes as divers are set to search the wreck of the south korean military ship that sank saturday near north korea after an unexplained explosion. 46 crew men may still be on board. four u.s. navy ships are helping out. >> meanwhile, passover begins tonight at sundown as new clashes over settlements in east jerusalem leave two israeli soldiers and two palestinian militants dead. it is the most violent clash on the israeli-gaza border since israelened an offensesive there a little over a year ago. this as israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu tells his cabinet that israel and the united states can still work out their differences over the continued construction of settlements. >> the female star of tv's "law & order criminal intent" has to

call on the real life new york city police department. she was allegedly being stalked by an obsessed fan. new york city's detectives say katherine herb, the actress who played a detective on the popular police show has been followed by a man who poured out his love for her in letters and emails. cops say the guy, a songwriter from philadelphia has turned up several times on the set of the show. he was arrested on stalking charges last week. peter? >> a 14-year-old driver leads police in new mexico on a wild high speed chase that lasted for 12 miles. at some point the teen exceeded speeds of 50 miles an hour while driving off the road. a spike trap laid out by police finally slowed her down. the 17-year-old, 15-year-old and the 14-year-old driver were finally arrested on a whole raft of charges. >> luckily they didn't hit anybody. >> thank god. >> and didn't hurt themselves.

by told you earlier about tornadoes that touched down in the mid atlantic area, the north carolina, and that's a line of thunderstorms that marches on from the east through the mid atlantic and south florida as well. we've got nice and dry conditions across the center of the country and it is a soggy day to start in the pacific northwest. currently, we've got readings in the 50's all the way from new york down through florida where it picks up into the 60's. back behind the front, a little cooler temperatures in the 40's. in the plains states right now, we have 30's as you go to work, go to school or wherever you're off to today. later on today in new york city, 55. the double nickel will be the high temperature. that's how stuart varney says it in his homeland. you were on tv and radio a lot, weren't you? >> of course. >> 54 is going to be the high and 75 in dallas/fort worth. >> talk a little sports now. it's been six long years but duke returning to the final four. the blue devils beating a tough

baylor squad with a late run to break open a tie game in the closing minutes. led the way with 20 points. duke wins 78-71. they face west virginia in the semifinals fortunate semifinals. joining the blue devils will be michigan state after morgan hits this free throw. watch this. >> less than two seconds left gave the spartans the 70-69 victory over tennessee. that sends michigan state to its sixth final four in the last 12 years and second in a row. they, of course, will play a cinderella butler on saturday. only number one seed to make it to the top four. >> that's right. >> president obama sends his health care reform plan is going to trim the deficit but our next guest says it will do the exact opposite and that's to cover the costs the government will have to raise the prices on nearly everything you buy. >> yeah, we're talking about the vat. the value added tax.

stuart varney joins us. when you travel throughout europe, they've got that pesky vat. and in some spots, it's huge. it's close to 20%. >> actually, you don't see it. it's not like a sales tax where you're front up pay $10, that's an extra 6% for you. no, a value added tax is built into the price. >> 20%. 2>> 19% in germany. that's right. if i go out in new york today and buy a series of items, fly to europe and buy exactly the same items on the same day, they'll be about 15%, 20% higher in price over there. forget about currency trading. it's just higher prices because this vat is built into everything. that's how they pay for their entitlement. that's why we may well be considering it here to pay for our entitlements. >> how many people early on in the obama administration were saying, this looks a little bit like europe. some of these policies that they're proposing. >> please. >> is that the understatement of the year? >> we are going town precidown

that road. we look more and more like europe. >> do you really believe that democrats and republicans, americans will put up with a vat in america? >> yes. here's how it will work. the president has appointed a commission, a deficit reduction commission. it's bipartisan. alan simpson, republican is on this commission. it reports in december. they've got to come up with some kind of revenue gusher and this is the way to do it. and the president and the democrats can say it wasn't us. it was the commission. the commission simply had to do it. >> there's no way in this bipartisan debt commission that they're going to allow a vat tax and not also say that you have to control spending. >> the way they'll control spending is to cut the level of benefits especially in something like social security. raise the retirement age. tax people more. and maybe do some things similar with medicare like big co-pays so they'll cut there.

but raise taxes elsewhere. much more to pay for this massive gusher of spending. >> and a vat, value added tax would be a gusher of money for the government. we have a graphic over there on the big screen. for every 1% that the government adds on a value added tax, it's a trillion dollars over 10 years. >> right. that's right. >> when you think of germany, 19%. >> it will be a trillion dollars. >> yes. now it will be introduced slowly. you get a small percentage to start with, goes up as your entitlement spending grows. >> who is hurt most by the value added tax? >> well, it's regressive. that is to say poor people pay exactly the same tax as rich people so you can say that it's regressive and it hurts working families. >> so when we heard howard dean earlier about 30 minutes ago, when we played the soundbite, he was on another financial network. sorry. when he was talking about -- >> they pay him, by the way. >> that's right. they do. >> thank you. >> he was talking about how the

health care reform in this country really is a redistribution of wealth. >> it is. >> so if they're trying to redistribute things, stuart, if they tacked a vat on, that would not be helpful to the people they're trying to give the money from the top to the bottom. >> look at alone health care reform is increment redistribution. looked at in total entitlement and how to pay for them, that comes down the food chain, everybody pays a bit more. >> once you start this, you can't stop. >> no going back. >> i remember when it was started, they said here comes the vat. pretty soon, we'll be able to really reduce income taxes. might be able to get rid of income taxes. sounded great. what do you know? now we have a 18%, 19% vat and a 50% income tax bracket. >> doesn't sound like a tax value added. sounds wonderful. sounds like a benefit. >> like a value meal. >> absolutely. >> i have to have a vat. >> absolutely. as they supersize, paying the

government. all right, stuart. always a pleasure. >> 9:20 today. >> very good. >> check him out. howard dean will not be his guest. >> no, he will not. >> he says that so nicely. coming up on our show, sarah palin stumping for senator john mccain. is she losing point with her own voters? a fair and balanced debate. >> a woman having a stroke tried to call a friend for help but dialed the wrong number but the stranger on the other end wound up saving her life. [ male announcer ] years ago,

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this weekend. but many people who paid to have them shipped are still waiting. the company started taking preorders march 12th promising to get them delivered before the store launch date of april 3rd so people who placed an order by march 27th will be ok. but orders after that date won't be shipped apparently until april 12th. boeing's new dream liner passes an important test. the plane completed an initial wing bending test. that's good, i think. it's an important step before the plane can be certified to actually fly passengers. boeing hopes to have the plane in service by the end of the year. see? >> i think there's a whole bunch of plastic in there. together again, sarah palin stumping for arizona senator john mccain over the weekend. >> senator mccain is a man of his word and i think what he could have counted on and looked forward to was the transparency that john also talked about in the campaign that's so necessary, in order to build more space into your government, citizens are feeling so

disenchanted because of the lack of transparency that the obama administration has ushered in. john wouldn't have done that. >> that sounded pretty good. why are palin's supporters upset about the two of them appearing together? joining us for a fair and balanced debate, we have stacy carlton, former speechwriter to former treasury secretary henry paulson and the author of "you, me and the u.s. economy." and josh gottheimer, former speechwriter to president bill clinton. good morning to both of you. >> good morning. >> stacy, what -- sarah palin has been embraced by the tea party crowd. and yet, a number of them simply don't like john mccain and don't like the fact that she was supporting him in his bid for re-election. why? >> well, some people certainly think of john mccain has become too washington establishment like but sarah palin bona fide with the tea party movement are very solid and strong. there may be a few people a little upset but overall her popularity continues to grow.

>> in fact, a lot of her supporters feel that john mccain has never been conservative enough. he's too mavericky, right? >> too mavericky but if you look at john mccain's record, he's always believed in smaller government, cutting government spending which is one of the key parts of this tea party movement. >> uh-huh. jo josh, what do you think of them appearing over the weekend together? while a number of her supporters have said, look, john mccain, she's very conservative. he is not. you got to hand it to her. she has been loyal because without john mccain, we wouldn't know about her today most probably. >> that's exactly right. i mean, john mccain made sarah palin and obviously, she wouldn't have the national reputation she has right now without him. i think it's funny, the republicans have gotten to the point where they've decided that john mccain, the tea partiers have decided that john mccain is not their cup of tea and given the fact that the republicans have approval ratings below 20, they should come together now instead of dividing up.

so if i were them, i would bring in as many people as they can and actually move forward and try to come together as the republican party. but as a democrat, i'm loving it. keep dividing. >> stacy, ultimately what it comes down to, though, is senator mccain invited sarah palin to get him re-elected. do you think her appearance this past weekend in arizona is going to help him? >> certainly. she furnished his credentials. she's a woman of principle and he's a man of principle. i think john mccain will win the primary nomination. >> josh, you probably see it about the same way, don't you? >> yeah. no, i think the -- well, let's put it this way, i think john mccain will get the nomination and win in arizona. i will disagree with my friend and say about the principles of sarah palin. the tea partiers continue to move further right and pull john mccain with them. i don't think that's good for john mccain or the republican

party but it's good for democrats. >> it's good for us. gives us something to talk about on a monday morning. thank you both for joining us today. >> thank you. >> thanks for having us. >> you bet. coming up, a woman suffering a stroke makes a desperate call for help. but she dialed the wrong number. it turns out the stranger on the other end of the call wound up saving the woman's life. you are going to meet the hero next. and look at this sticky situation this little guy got himself into. a racoon caught in a peanut butter jar.

>> well, you're about to be treated with an amazing story. a woman suffers a stroke so she makes a desperate call for help to a friend but she dials the

wrong number. the stranger on the other end of the call end up saving her life. she calls 911. >> joining us now, taylor booker, a freshman at u.c. riverside. good morning. >> good morning. >> tell us about this. this changes the definition of when a stranger calls, don't hang up. you became a hero when a stranger called. what happened? >> it was late at night, early saturday morning. and i get a phone call on my cell phone and at first, i answered and thought it was a prank call. however, it turns out that mrs. turner, she was in need of help.

and once she said she needed help, i realized the call. i quickly asked a friend to use her cell phone and called 911, riverside police department and they transferred me to richmond police department and i told them all the information that i could get out of her. her name, her city that she lived in, what had happened, that she had told me. and they quickly got medics to her house and helped her. >> taylor, you saved her life because the authorities actually had to break into her house to get her because she had in fact suffered a stroke and could not move and i understand the reason that you decided to pick up the phone call, because so many of us wouldn't especially in the middle of the night was because you noticed the area code and you thought that that was near where you grew up? >> yes. the area code is actually my area code of the city that i live in. so the first thing i thought was

there was a friend or someone calling me from a different cell phone. so that was the first thing i picked up the phone for. >> taylor, what does this teach you in your own life? what has this incident said to you about how you should conduct your life or maybe why we have a purpose here? >> honestly, it teaches me everything has a purpose. and to be aware of, you know, what you do in your life and it's always good to help out. i was honestly glad i could help her in the end. >> so many people in our society, in this day and age choose not to help people for whatever reason. i understand you had a chance to meet her when you went home for spring break. what was that like? >> it was great. i went to her apartment with my mom and we sat there and talked with her. she seemed like she was doing well. her speech is still impaired.

however, she was trying to communicate with us best she could. and i found out that she has a b.s. in science which is the same thing i'm working for so it was an inspiration to me to know that she was in the same field that i possibly could work in and she was just all around grateful and thankful for everything. >> what a story. taylor booker, thank you so much for getting up so early. couple of extra hours before you go to class. >> yeah. yes. >> you're an american hero. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> coming up, president obama bypasses the senate making 15 recess appointments. when president bush did the same thing, a firestorm ensued. his former press secretary, president bush's former press secretary dana perino is going to put it all in perspective. >> and then we showed you video on friday, a dog taking a bite

out of a cop car. the dog and his owner joining us live next hour on "fox & friends."

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>> you will be backed up by a clear mission. and the right strategy and you will have the support to finish the job, to get the job done. and i am confident all of you are going to get the job done right here in afghanistan. >> we will go live to afghanistan and we will speak with lieutenant colonel oliver north. >> terrific. meanwhile, it plays just like a scene out of the movie "pretty woman". a rich businessman tries to help a woman turn her life around but this true story does not have a hollywood ending. that's straight ahead. >> our slogan this hour comes from janice in florida. nothing could be neater than a monday morning with steve, gretchen and peter. that is neat. thank you. >> good morning, everyone. and the reason that peter is here this week is because brian is home. >> happy to be here. >> you are the only attorney i know in new york city who when

we pay your retainer, simply a cup of coffee and hot buttered roll. >> hey, i love seeing our friends out there. happy to be here. >> great to have you. >> thank you. >> we need to start the morning with a fox news alert. terrifying morning in moscow. deadly blasts hit the city subway system during rush hour. two female homicide bombers blew themselves up at two separate stations. 37 people have died. 100 are injured. moments ago, president obama released this statement. the american people stand united with the people of russia in opposition to violence extremism and heinous terrorist attacks that demonstrate such disregard for human life and we condemn these outrageous attacks. russian authorities suspect terrorism and think the bombers came from the north region. so far, no groups have claimed responsibility. coming up in the bottom of the hour, we'll have the very latest in a live report from moscow. and another fox news alert for now, president obama heading back to washington after making a surprise visit to afghanistan. he spent six hours there telling

troops how important their mission is. >> the united states of america does not quit once it starts on something. you don't quit. the american armed services does not quit. we keep at it. we persevere. and together with our partners, we will prevail. >> the president is also pressuring afghan authorities to make good on promises to reign in corruption as a nato helicopter has crashed in southern afghanistan. nato says no one dies but all on board were evacuated for medical treatment. this is the president's first trip to afghanistan as commander in chief. joining us live now with more is lieutenant colonel oliver north. good morning, colonel. >> gretchen, most of these marine soldiers, airmen and sailors out here don't know that the president was here because they don't have access to the media. but the mission out here is being done just as he said, and one of those who is carrying out

that mission, colonel rick mencini, the head of one of the mentoring teams, out here for over a year working with the afghan army. give us a sense of how it's gone. >> i'll tell you, ollie, this has been one rewarding and challenging experience. our afghan counterparts are very capable but however they need us and for us to have not only the marines, the army, the air force, and our danish and our british allies here teaching and mentoring them to become more self-sufficient and provide for the security and sovereignty of afghanistan, truly remarkable effort on all parties part. >> because you mentioned one of those allies, i've got one right here. captain peter is with the danish army. you're taking this team into combat. >> yeah, we're taking them out in a few weeks to the green zone. >> you've been over here before. are these troops ready to go to war? >> yeah, they're more than ready. we had them here in 2007 and big difference from then until now is they're better. they have a better education and

there are more of them. we only have two platoons at that point and this time we're going to get a whole canvas so they'll probably be partnering one to one with our battalion. >> one of the things that's noticeable is the chief of staff was here the other day, hit a roadside i.e.d. and survived it. one of the great things about this war we have great partners to work with and so does the afghan national army. back to you. >> all right. we have a great partner in you, colonel, for being over there in afghanistan. thanks very much for that report. new video from china as rescuers frantically try to save 153 coal miners in what could be the worst mining disaster in years. the workers were digging a new mine when an old water network broke sending water everywhere and trapping them inside. the chinese have been under international pressure to improve mine safety. thousands of people without power after dangerous storms ripped through north carolina. eight unconfirmed tornadoes touched down destroying dozens of homes.

people in high point, north carolina say the twister sounded like a freight train. >> we heard the train roaring sound that everybody always says and my walls of my bathroom started vibrating and we could tell the plumbing under the house was shaking. and it was just the most frightening thing that we have ever been through. >> luckily, only a few people were hurt. take a look at this video, a racoon needs to be rescued after he gets his head stuck in a peanut butter jar. the animal was captured and taken to a nearby animal clinic where it was tranquilized and the jar was removed. the racoon was released back into the wild. wow! i didn't think they actually did that but good for that little racoon and it got a snack, too. >> good video for baob sagat. dana perino is joining us from our nation's capital where it's raining down there as well. good morning to you. >> good morning. great to be here. >> good to have you.

we heard from oliver north where he's in afghanistan, the president made a surprise visit. he arrived under the cover of darkness and took off before dawn, also, under the cover of darkness. he has not talked much about afghanistan in the last year or so. it's all been health care, health care, health care. you had to wonder whether or not he had forgotten about that. >> well, it was smart for the president to go to afghanistan. i assume when he was going to be going to indonesia but canceled those trips because of the health care bill, they probably were going to go to afghanistan at that point anyway. you know, he did spend some time last fall and made a courageous decision to send more troops to afghanistan. he gave a big speech at west point but then you didn't hear much from him and in fact, "the new york times" reported that, i think, it was over 50 public appearances in -- from january, he hadn't mentioned it even once. so good for him to go. not only is it important for the troops to see him but he's responsible for rallying the nation to take care of the troops, especially while they're

there and when they get home. one thing that's interesting in your clip, president obama says that the americans -- americans do not quit. i'm glad to hear him say that now. as candidate, he didn't say that. he was willing to quit iraq but thankfully that's turned around as well. >> that's a very interesting point, dana. what do you make about the fact that i think this is the deadliest month or last couple of days in afghanistan that preceded his visit. does that have anything to do with his visit? >> no, i don't think so. if you think back to when more troops would be going, if you surge more troops in, you probably will have more violence in the next several months. that was one of the things that he needs to be reminding people. i know he had a singular focus on health care for a while, at least publicly. and it's -- you have to prepare the nation that they are going to have -- they're going to see some of their troops not survive because we are fighting harder. >> dana, there was a tweet by a howard kurtz, can you tell us

about that? >> yeah, several reporters sent this to me yesterday which he said unlike president bush who always went on surprise visits, obama was owning this war. well, i'm pretty sure that obama's trip to indonesia was a surprise since all the headlines said it was and maybe in 140 characters, howard didn't -- wasn't able to express himself correctly but certainly, the obama's trip to afghanistan was not on the press schedule. >> giving him the benefit of the doubt. that's right. and what about the fact that over the weekend close of business on friday, the president made a 15 recess payments. when the senate leaves and they have been gone for three minutes, the president appointed 15 people to jobs and in particular the one that's causing controversy is upper left-hand corner, mr. becker. he's going into the labor division. the president of the united states, that you were under,

george w. bush did this as well. you feel it's different. >> it certainly is. it's interesting to sit back and see the hypocrisy of the day especially the paper. now they're all in favor because the senate republicans being recals trait. on this particular individual, becker, there were two democrats, nelson of nebraska and lincoln of arkansas who both said they weren't supportive of him. i don't mind that president obama made recess appointments. i do think that politically it was a little bit tone deaf because he's coming off a very -- probably the most partisan fight in our history when it comes to health care and to have a fig leaf of bipartisanship, maybe do it the next recess if you can't get him through. on that friday night, it showed that the president is feeling his oats and he decided to go ahead and get them through and i think most people will see this as a gift to the labor community. >> uh-huh. in terms of feeling oats, dana,

there's some press reports now that democrats who voted against health care reform, against the president's bill, may now be taking some heat in their own parties. are these folks being smeared? are they being threatened with primaries? are they being threatened, benies withheld from them because they didn't step in support of the president? >> you can read some of the articles and think so. partly because the administration doesn't seem to be even subtle about it. one administration official said that president obama is going to be pretty busy helping people who helped him. you know, look, there are people who principally were against the health care bill and you would think they would support their party members. they're going to need them for other things and hopefully, there won't be -- they might have lost those seats. say that those few members who voted against health care, i think there were 35 democrats who voted against it. if they had voted for it, they might have lost their seat all

together because a republican could have won so i think that cooler heads should prevail, these numbers won their elections fair and square. if they made a principle vote, leave them alone. >> i'm not so sure that some of the politicians want president obama to come and campaign for them anyway. last three times he did in new jersey, virginia and massachusetts those candidates lost. before you go, i'd love to get your take on the hospitalization of former first lady barbara bush. i know so many people are concerned about her health. she's in the hospital in houston. what have you been able to find out there? >> well, i was fortunate enough to be able to talk to jean becker, mrs. barbara bush's chief of staff who says she's feeling fine. she went into the hospital and they're doing some routine tests. she is 84 years old. i think it's smart for them to take her in, get the tests so they can make everything is fine. she has a lot of living to do yet and a lot of opinions to be expressed as she does so well. >> i saw her in florida at a reading event which reading, she

has championed for many, many, many years and she was very funny at the microphone and she was -- >> i saw her last month as well and she was just great. >> all right. dana, great seeing you on this monday morning. have a fantastic week. we'll check you back here same time, same channel next week. thank you. >> ok. bye, guys. >> building coming up on the sh jammed health care reform through. congress and the white house won't be under the same plan as the american people, huh? how you can foot the bill for their special health insurance. >> great. >> and a former teacher is accused of letting his kids perform a striptease in his class. perform a striptease. and it was caught on tape. now he's going to take the stand. resilience. elasticity.

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exchange. but how will it measure up against the coverage they currently get under the government plan? and will taxpayers end up footing the bill? here to explain is elizabeth mcdonald from the fox business network. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> last week, this started percolating that a couple of republican senators, grassley and coburn wanted to introduce this amendment because they were scratching their heads and saying wait a minute, you want this health care reform for all americans but you're not going to take the same plan. >> right much the way the law was written, they get to keep the plan they already have. what happened in the negotiations for health care reform, senator harry reid according to senator grassley said no to this amendment that senator grassley and senator coburn wanted which would have said look, any -- the white house, congress, would have to be enrolled in these insurance exchanges. he shot it down. and they're re-introducing the amendment. >> all right. so why, in your mind, would the president and other lawmakers not want to enroll in what they want all other americans to have. >> it's interesting. senator grassley is especially

saying they should eat their own cooking because they could see the problems that will be percolating up from these insurance exchanges. now, reports are out that the president said he would enroll them in the insurance exchange. we don't know. we have yet to determine the quality of the health insurance plans under the new exchanges. we know that the federal government gets very, very good plans. they have a vast array of choices, of over 200, i think, and so the question is -- taxpayers already pay $27 billion towards these existing federal insurance plans. we know that insurance exchanges have failed in the past. it happened in california with pac advantage. what happens is basically, insurance premiums spiral because healthy people opt out. they don't pay the mandate or whatever and they enroll -- they don't enroll in them so they get very, very sick people. why not get the $27 billion, you know, channeled towards health insurance exchanges. >> let's look at some of the comparisons. based on the current health care plan that members of congress have vs. what they would get if

they used the exchange that they want other americans to get. >> that's right. we see that the most popular individual plan in the federal government plan is about 6450 and the other plan is $14580. it costs about $27 billion and they cover about eight million workers and family members compared to the insurance exchanges which, according to the c.b.o. estimates, they would average about $5800. again, taxpayers would subsidize the cost of those insurance plans. the family on the silver plan, now, this is the one that qualifies for taxpayer subsidies. this is why i included it here. would be $14,100. >> if they took the health insurance exchange, it would be cheaper for taxpayers to foot the bill for members of congress. >> that's right. also, we don't know if you're going to get 235 choices of insurance plans in the insurance exchange. we don't know the quality of the plans just yet. so, you know, the issue is mass care, for example, massachusetts, basically would

be broke without taxpayer subsidies, right? tax advantage from the california plan failed in 2006 because it could only get six people, healthy people opted out so this is an interest to taxpayers again. >> we'll see if they eat their own cooking. >> that's right. >> thank you so much. >> sure. >> maybe he saw the movie "pretty woman" too many times. a high powered businessman paid an escort to leave her day job and start a new life with him. she went back to her old tricks and now he's suing her? does he have a case? and angelina jolie breaks away from her brood to take on a new role in the film her kids may actually be able to see. was it g rated? i hope so.

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> au >> we're back at 22 minutes after the hour. you remember this scene from "pretty woman"? >> ♪ leave it up to me >> don't you love prince? >> more than life myself. >> don't you knock? >> vivian, i have a business proposition for you. >> what do you want? >> i'm going to be in town until sunday. i want you to spend a week with me. >> me? >> yes. i'd like to hire you as an employee. would you consider spending the week with me? >> i will pay you to be at my beck and call. >> well, could that have actually happened in real life? businessman robert braut says he paid an escort $100,000 to leave her life of tricks and be his girlfriend but she didn't change her ways allegedly. now, he's suing for the return

of what he calls an outstanding loan. is it still outstanding? but does he have a case? joining us now is fox news legal analyst arthur ardella and a criminal defense attorney. what is this about, arthur? the man, did he loan money to this woman who had been an escort and a stripper and now wants the money back? >> ok. in a nutshell, when a loan in new york, when a loan is not in writing, there's something called a statute of fraud. that means it should be in writing. however, performance or partial performance puts the whole statute of frauds aside. this is the partial performance, this is their evidence. she started paying the loan back. that shows her mind set. that it wasn't a gift. gifts, you don't pay back. loans, you pay back. she started paying it back. she stopped paying it back and now he's suing her for the balance. >> tom, she says he is nothing

more than a jilted lover. and that things went bad and what do you expect? >> sugar daddy gone sour. that's what i say. look, here's the question here, to me there's two issues. this whole bit about fraud and so forth is theatrics. was this a loan or was it a gift? now, if he wants to argue it's a loan, as arthur brought up, he'll have evidence of that. we have the statute of frauds in new york. he'll need to produce writings or some other documentary evidence indicating who the parties to the loan were and what the outstanding were regarding repayment. the fact in and of itself she may have started to give some of this money back, perhaps, because she wanted to walk away from this new life in new york and return to her enterprising ways in wyoming, that in and of itself wouldn't be enough. >> what if hypothetically this fella was paying this woman for sexual relations, what if he was paying her for sex? and now he wants to call it a loan. >> but she's not even saying that those are the facts of the

case. she's not saying he was giving her the money as in pretty woman to be his disposal. even if it was a sugar daddy gone sour. >> he found her on a web site. >> you give a girl a ring to marry her, unless you gave it to her on a holiday which is deemed a gift, she has to give you the ring back. >> 15 seconds. >> let me just say, arthur's client isn't the only one with substantial assets based on what i saw on that picture. >> come on now! >> arthur -- >> ladies and gentlemen. >> conditional, yes. a conditional gift, she met the condition. she uprooted herself from wyoming and moved to new york and made herself this guy's girlfriend. it went south. >> let's see what happens. >> he'll get money back. >> we want to know more about this. good to see you both. have a good week. thank you. coming up, the case of -- guys, excuse me. steve and gretchen in the green room, go ahead, guys. >> thank you, peter. >> coming up on the show, the

case of made-up facts. she's accused of being a traitor by helping terrorists. she's speaking out fort first time. >> we showed you this video on friday. a dog taking a bite out of the police cruiser. chewing the bumper right out of it. what's up with that? we'll talk to the owner of that dog who will haul along the dog as well straight ahead on "fox & friends" for this monday. [ female announcer ] sometimes you need tomorrow

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>> oh, my goodness. it's gone to the dogs. lady gaga and time for your shot of the morning. he's gone gaga. a pet photographer based in san francisco has taken photos of pooches dressed in some of lady gaga's most outlandish outfits. that's better than kids doing

it. >> which side is lady gaga? >> funny. >> wait a second, i love her. i think she's terrific. she's very talented. >> she's very talented but very resolved. i don't want my kids watching measure videos. >> have you seen her latest video? you wouldn't want your wife to watch it. >> haven't seen it. >> all right. but i do love that song. "papparazzi. "that's a good one. thanks for joining us on a mighty wet monday in new york city. two homicide bombers have blown themselves up in moscow's subway system during rush hour. at least 37 people are dead. for the very latest, let's go live to dana lewis who is at the scene of one of the bombings. and dana, do you think one of the sites was selected? one of the subway stations, because of its proximity to a landmark there in downtown

moscow? >> that landmark is over my shoulder, steve, at the square, the head of the building. the successor to the k.g.b. and this is the organization that has been carrying on this front line fight in chechnya targeting and gunning down terrorists that they believe are involved with separatism and no doubt it is quite symbolic that it's under that building. that's one of the main metro stops on this line. before 8:00 this morning, busy morning, the height of rush hour, a female suicide bomber, second car, detonates about six pounds of t.n.t. as passengers were getting on and off of that metro and about 42 minutes later on the same line, four stops from here, again, another female suicide bomber. third car this time. she detonates her explosive and as you know, they are reporting

about 37 dead now. some 70 injured and it may be the death toll rises, steve and we are told that the bombs were filled with bolts and iron rods. the head of the federal securities service is already linking this to the troubles mainly chechen separatism. he said we lack with our compromise to root out terror fortunately t fortunate. he's saying we'll go after these guys and stop it. we all know they've been very unsuccessful in dealing with terrorism here and the they have put out a strong message today, hitting in the heart of russia in the capital of the city if they are terrorists and right now, it is starting to point in that direction. steve? >> dana lewis live in moscow with the very latest. thank you very much. we should point out that metro systems in big metropolitan areas around the world now are on alert in the wake of what's happened in moscow. >> let's do a couple of other quick headlines for you for your

monday. passover begins tonight at sundown as new clashes over settlements in east jerusalem leaves two israeli soldiers and two palestinian militants dead. it's the most violent clash on the israel-gaza border since israel ended an offensive a little over a year ago. this as israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu tells his cabinet that israel and the u.s. can still work out their differences over the continued strukz of settlements. >> the first florida face jofr gets heated on "fox news sunday." charlie crist and former house speaker marco rubio took off the gloves with chris wallace. rubio questioned whether crist is a real conservative while crist jabbed at rubio's ethics. >> you don't get it. this campaign is not about you and it's not about me. it's about the people watching this program. that are watching their country being fundamentally redefined by this administration and this congress. they're taking us in the direction that is wrong. and they're looking for people to stand up to this agenda and offer an alternative. >> i think we can both agree

we're both good conservatives. what he's done utilized funds, double dipping as you mentioned earlier for plane flights. thousands of dollars where he billed the taxpayers of florida and billed the republican party of florida. >> the florida primary is on august 24th. >> a former chorus teacher heads to court today accused of letting kids dance provocatively in his class but nathan grigsby of southwestern dekalb high school in atlanta says he did nothing wrong. >> i'm looking forward to it. >> at no time contributed to any part of these things that took place. he stopped it the moment it came to his attention. >> there you go. he is charged with five counts of deprivation of a minor. prosecutors say he didn't do enough to stop the dancing. >> a famous face could soon

play the evil villian from "sleeping beauty." >> on her 16th birthday, help prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel! and die! >> oh, no! >> sources say angelina jolie is one of the top choices to play the part of the evil fairy godmother in disney's live action adaptation. it is the very early stages of development. it is in that. it's speculated that tim burton may direct. the only reason i know that, on yop if i'm saying it right, my daughter used to call the spinning wheel the staring wheel. >> i don't think the evil fairy godmother is right. but steve can do the weather. >> bad weather there. line of thunderstorms from south florida. good thing you're out of florida this week. today -- >> great weather last week. >> that's great. beautiful down there this time of year.

the line of thunderstorms from floor flo florida and to the mid atlantic and a little bit of snow associateed with this storm. it's moved through portions of new england. it's freezing in chicago. same for minneapolis and same for kansas city. barely over freezing and caribou, maine and you have 50's across -- from the big northeastern corridors hitting right through the mid atlantic and 60's right now in florida. of course, they also have some thunderstorms later on today, tampa will have exactly the same temperature that they got right now, 66. it's going to be almost 70 in new orleans and approaching 830 in portions of south texas and west texas as well. central plains in the 60's for the most part. 50's out east and out west where it's 4:37 in los angeles, 71 will be your high temperature. all right, who is in the final four, gretch? >> it's been six long years but duke returning now to the final four. the blue devils beating a tough baylor squad with a late run to break up a tie game in the closing minutes.

duke wins 78-71. they draw now west virginia in a semifinal. joining the blue devils will be michigan state. this after morgan hits this free throw. watch this. swoosh. went on to a spartans victory over tennessee and that sends michigan state to its sixth final four in 12 years. second in a row. they, of course, will face cinderella butler on saturday. talk a little golf. for the first time in 28 years, the armed palmer invitational will be completed on a monday. leader ernie els holds a two shot lead through 14 holes. play stopped after heavy florida thunderstorms postponed the last few holes of the final round until 10:00 a.m. eastern today. >> good luck. >> ernie els is on top. two strokes back in second. ben curtis, they're all in a three way tie for third. it could be anyone's game today. >> all right. let's talk a little bit about something you may have seen last night on "60 minutes". a former f.b.i. and c.i.a. ag t

agent, i believe that's how you pronounce it, she was on last night and she's had -- she's had some trouble over the last five or six years. she feels that she should never have admitted, rather pled guilty to federal charges that caused her to forfeit her citizenship, that branded her hezbollah mole as well. she was on "60 minutes" last night doing her best to rehabilitate her reputation. listen. >> nothing prepares you to meet a terrorist, a real life terrorist, someone who has killed americans. someone who has vowed to always kill americans. i asked myself now looking at my child how could i put her life in danger? but that's what i wanted to do. i couldn't look at our marines, they're standing outside guarding us and tell them, hey, i'm pregnant. i'm shipping out. i knew what my contributions were and i wanted to protect the

lives of our soldiers. >> the main thing about her is she was a top operative for the united states. she was born in lebanon, i believe, so she spoke the native language. she was a key figure for the u.s. the allegation was when she came to this country, that she knowingly cheated her way into the country to become a citizen and that eventually backfired on her. she was saying she was pregnant when she was out doing some of this investigative work. so it seems that she was giving her best to make this country better. >> and she's become a controversial personality. people don't know what to believe. they credit her back in the early 2000's with regard to working inside yemen after the u.s.s. cole. being involved in an investigation with a 1986 hijacking in pakistan that involved the killing of 22 passengers. and working on america's bebehalf. but now in some sense, she's a person without a country. she's been stripped of her citizenship.

she needs approval to go more than 50 miles and she's been ordered deported which is on hold because of risks to her and actually being deported. there's some in the state department and the government community who say she's an absolute asset and that she should be praised for her conduct although she plead guilty to legally accessing f.b.i. files. as an f.b.i. agent. >> that's against the rules. a member of the house intel committee says he doesn't believe her. doesn't flat out doesn't believe her and believes that she did pass the info on to the other side. all right. it's 18 minutes before the top of the hour. straight ahead, we roll on for this monday. we have a brand new series on "fox & friends." what's it called? jobs in america. a very important topic. where are they? fox business breaks it down for us. >> who is this? this is winston. his claim to fame is chomping off a police car's fender. he is a pitbull.

find out how the law punished him when we talk to his owner next. >> there they are. right now, the trivia question of the day -- so many arthritis pain relievers --

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>> time for your news by the numbers. first, eight million bucks. that's how much the government may reap in profits once it sells its stake in citigroup. the obama administration making plans to sell its shares which have risen about $3 since citigroup was bailed out. next, $1.8 billion. that's how much a chinese company is paying to buy volvo from ford. ford has been trying to get rid of volvo for several years so it

can focus on managing its ford, lincoln and mercury brand. finally, $42 million. that's how much this colorado woman thought she won on a slot machine until the casino told her the machine malfunctioned and she had won nothing. >> oh! >> for her trouble, the fortune valley casino gave her a free hotel room and $23. >> no, no. >> can you do that case for me? >> i don't like that at all. >> all right. 14 before the top of the hour. winston the dog has no problem with people. police cars, another story. this pitbull mix is now on probation and must take obedience classes after ripping off the bumper -- look at that dog chewing the bumper off a police cruiser and then chewed on some tires for a couple of minutes wrecking them. but after two weeks behind bars, the 3-year-old pitbull is back with his family. >> joining us now, winston the dog. and his owner michael everling

much good morning. >> good morning. >> so now, winston has been labeled potentially dangerous by the judge and has to wear a sign and attend obedience training classes. is that a fair resolution for winston? the pitbull? >> yeah, i think it is. i mean, it's not that -- there aren't that many restrictions on him. after six months, potentially dangerous designation will be removed so we think it's a fair judgment. >> yeah. mike, when you saw the video, we're going to play it again, what did you -- first of all, did you realize it was your dog and secondly, did you have any idea your dog was that powerful? >> well, actually, we didn't see the video until after we'd already been to court. so i just got a call from the police department saying that our dog had attacked some police cars and i needed to come to work and calm him down, basically.

>> he took a bite out of the bumper, has he ever done any damage to a person? >> he's a very calm dog. never had a problem with really much of anything before that sunday. >> mike, why was the police car continuing to approach the dogs? why did the police car continue to move forward on the dogs? is that strange? >> i have no idea. i doubt that there's a procedure in place to deal with a dog attacking your bumper. do the best he could. >> would you let a child play with winston or would you be afraid that winston would bite that child in the same way that it tore up that police car? >> no, absolutely -- my cousin has a 10-year-old that plays with winston frequently and he's never shown any aggression towards anybody. >> mike, i know you're not -- >> he's really a big baby. >> i know you're not the dog

whisperer but what do you think was going on in winston's head that day that caused him to chew on the police car? >> we really have no idea what triggered his behavior that day. our only thought is that, perhaps, when the police officer was pulling people over, if he was running his sirens, winston doesn't like noise sometimes. so that's about the only thing we can think of. >> now, winston is attending a citizenship class. will there be a graduation party and what will there be to eat at it? >> oh, i don't know if we'll have a party or not. >> thank you. >> they shouldn't play bumper cars. that's for darn sure. >> all right. mike and winston joining us today from chattanooga. thank you very much, sir. >> thank you. >> the pressident says he's goig to focus on jobs. where are they? we'll tell you when we kick off a new series on "fox & friends",

jobs in america. next. >> first on this day in history in 1999, the dow jones climbed above 10,000 for the first time. on this date in 2009, g.m.c.e.o. rick wagner resigned under pressure.

>> answer to the question of the day, of course, is it's jennifer capriati. the winner, larry, the very smart larry in dover, new hampshire. congratulations. we're kicking off a new series called jobs in america today. every day you hear numbers and terms describing the job market. it might not make much sense to you until now. >> chris cotter from the fox business network joins us and good to have you here on the curvy couch. >> good to see you. >> there's a whole bunch of, you know, the president had been devoting all of his time to health care. now he's pivoting and going to look at jobs and there are a bunch of numbers that come out

that indicate whether or not we've got any jobs anywhere and whether or not we're going to add any jobs. what's coming up this week? >> great point. this is a huge week for jobs because it all culminates on friday with the nonfarms payroll report. that comes from the bureau of labor statistics, the labor department and we have a number of different reports that lead up to it. the thing about it is we get overburdened with numbers every week and every month about jobs and a lot of people don't really understand what they mean. for example, the unemployment rate at 9.7%, does that mean that 9.7% of the people in this country are unemployed? no, it means that 9.7% of the labor force is unemployed. and the labor force only consists of those who are actually looking for work and aren't able to work so you can see that there's a large number of people out there that may be unemployed that aren't even included in the labor force so some economists say, you know what? on friday if the unemployment rate comes in higher than 9.7%, if it goes up, it will be a good thing. that leaves a lot of people scratching heads because there are right now millions of people that are unemployed that have maybe given up looking for work

so they're not included in the labor force. they're not even included in that factor. if they feel like the economy is maybe looking up, maybe their prospects of finding work are better than they were three months ago, they'll rejoin the labor force and that number will go up. it's not necessarily a bad thing. it means those people now feel like they can find work and might be able to find work in the coming months. >> a silver lining in a higher number. let's talk about some of these terms that people hear as well. one that a lot of americans are familiar with is g.d.p. >> yeah. >> break if down for us. >> g.d.p. is the gross domestic product and that's basically all that we produce in this country and that's important because obviously, if you're not producing much which we've seen in this recession. we had several quarters of negative g.d.p., that means you won't be hiring a whole lot of people and people actually are going to be out of work. factories aren't going to be making as much and they'll be laying people off. we won't be buying as much as consumers. retailers will be laying people off. that's what we saw so g.d.p. has to grow at a certain rate in order to grow jobs. most economists feel about 3 1/2%. if you get that every quarter

and we'll get this first quarter g.d.p. in april, if it comes at 3 1/2%, we're at a position where we'll add jobs. >> another indicator of how many jobs have been added is a.d.p., the people who actually cut our paychecks, they know exactly how many paychecks are being cut every week. so that's something that comes out mid week? >> yeah, on wednesday, we get a report from a.d.p. as you mentioned, that's similar to the government report we get on friday. it's private sector. it doesn't include government jobs. as we know, the government is growing and there's more and more government jobs out there. it used to be a weak indicator and now it's a little bit of a stronger indicator. we get another private report on wednesday, challenger gray and christmas, a private company, that will tell us about corporate planned layoffs and that's important, too, how many corporations that laid people off earlier and how many plan on doing it later and then the weekly report on thursday. all leading up to friday's big nonfarms payroll report from the government. >> you'll be here all week. >> i'll be here all week to talk about jobs. >> chris cotter, thanks so much. >> you got it. three navy seals about to go on trial accused of punching one of

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bombers killing 37 people. a live report from mush i can't straight ahead -- russia. >> steve: president obama due back in washington in about an hour after surprising the troops in afghanistan over the weekend. his message to them and to president karzai straight ahead. >> actor and activist sean penn coming to the defense of dictator hugo which advise. another actress is pen ago letter asking him why. she joins us. our slogan comes from june in west palm beach, florida. ignore your freedoms and they will go away. watching "fox & friends" gets me through the day. >> live from studio e it's monday and a wet one across the eastern third of the united states. you okay back there, ted? ted?

ted? ted is not here and near is brian and that is why the great peter johnson, junior joins us today. great to have a lawyer on here today. >> thank you, nice to see you. >> gretchen: we have to start with a fox news alert. a terrifying morning in moscow. a blast in the city subway system. look at the amateur video now. just in. officials say two female homicide bombers blew themselves up at two separate stations. they killed 37 people, wounded more than 100. complete chaos there. moments ago, president obama released this statement saying, the american people stand united with the people of russia in opposition to violent extremism and terrorist attacks that demonstrate such disregard for human life and we condemn these outrageous acts. russian authorities suspect terrorism and think the bombers came from the north region. they believe they could be chechens. so far, no groups have claimed responsibility. coming up at the bottom of the hour, we'll have the very latest

in a live report from russia. another fox news alert, president obama heading back to washington right now after making that surprise visit to afghanistan yesterday. he spent six hours in kabul telling troops how important their mission in in defeating the taliban and al-qaeda in afghanistan. >> that's why we took a hard look and forged a new strategy and committed more resources in december. that's why we pushed our friends and allies and partners to pony up more resources themselves. >> gretchen: the president also pressuring afghan authorities to make good on promises to rein in corruption. this as a nato helicopter crashed in southern afghanistan, but nato says no one died. >> britain's air force scrambled fighter jets twice this month after receiving notice of possible attempts to hijack passenger jets. in one instance, air traffic

controllers overheard the word, hostage, and ransom on a flight from the u.s. both turned out to be false alarms. the guardian reporting that the prime minister was alerted and could have face add decision of whether to shoot down the airliners to avoid an attack. major cleanup effort after dangerous storms ripped through the southeast. in atlanta, they ripped up power lines and trees. at least eight unconfirmed tornadoes touched down in north carolina, destroying dozens of homes. people say twister sounded like a train. >> there was a huge v shaped cloud and it sounded like a freight train, unbelievable. trash blowing everywhere and it was about 5-foot off the ground. it was crazy. >> gretchen: luckily, only a few people were hurt through all the storms. those are your headlines for monday. >> steve: the storms continue all the way from florida up through the northeast.

hang on to fox, we'll keep you updated throughout the day. how many times in the last week have you heard democrats say, look, this is a great plan, the health care plan, because it's going to stop the lifetime caps if you've got a kid under 26 and under, he can still be on his parents' policy, and also, children with preexisting conditions cannot be denied coverage? you heard that a million times, right? david axelrod made that point over the weekend on the kids with preexisting conditions. listen to this. >> millions of small businesses this year will get tax credits for health insurance for their employees, kids with preexisting conditions will get coverage for the first time. they won't be excluded anymore. >> steve: he makes it very clear that this year this will happen. however, there was an item in the "new york times," i believe yesterday, that said that while the democrats believe that they wrote the bill to say that, peter johnson, you're an attorney -- apparently the

insurance companies say the language is vague and they don't have to start until 2014. >> it's more than the insurance companies and this is really kind of breath stopping. even the people who were opposed to this health insurance reform are saying this was a positive part of the plan that everyone agreed on, especially with regard to sick children. children with preexisting conditions who would have the ability to get insurance under the new law. but not so fast. according to at least one insurance commissioner, in the state of kansas, the national board of insurance commissioners, some attorneys, some other legislators are saying it's not true, that if you're a child with a preexisting condition, you may have to wait 'til 2014 to get access to a health care policy. this goes just absolutely against everything the president said, everything david axelrod was saying over the weekend,

appears, based upon this "new york times" story, to be not true. >> gretchen: people are waking up this morning saying why? how could this happen? the answer is the interpretation of the law. possibly it wasn't explicit enough to say it would be immediately, or it's just the interpretation, could the insurance companies be a little miffed that health care reform went through and now they're not exactly going to honor what the interpretation of the law was until they actually absolutely have to which would be 2014? >> that's one way of looking at it. but it appears in looking at the language that they're talking about and looking at what people are saying is that it's a problem in the legislative drafting. their legislative draftsmen, sometimes they're lobbyists or sometimes they're insurance people, the industry itself. sometimes it's legislators and their staff. but it appears not to be in the legislation. there is a question about access now versus getting benefits

later. >> steve: in fact, one of the attorneys quoted says the problem is until 2014, insurance companies don't have to sell somebody with a preexisting condition a policy. so despite the fact that that is how they have marketed it, according to some people who looked into it, it's not true. this flies in the face of what senator chuck schumer said over the weekend where he said the more people learn, the more they like. listen to him. >> as people learn what's actually in the bill, that six months now, by election time, this is going to be a plus 'cause the parade of horribles, particularly the worry that the average middle class person has that this is going to affect them negatively will have vanished and they'll see it will affect them positively in many ways. >> gretchen: this is what's called spin, folks. depending on which side of the fence you're on, i used it earlier about whether or not you like broccoli. when you're a parent, you're totally entitled to say to your

child, you have to eat your broccoli and after it goes down, you'll love it. when you're adults and you don't agree with health care reform and you eat the brussel sprout, do you always like it after you swallow it? i'm not so sure that same analogy follows through for adults who do not care for health care reform. >> steve: clearly mr. schumer was not referring to this "new york times" article because the more relook, the more we realize they were in such is a hurry to get this out that they proposed and adopted language that is so vague, now one of their main selling points, they don't have to live up to it. >> this has been the lead float in the parade that he's talking about. so when there is something that's promised and there is something that all or many americans find to be something that's important, giving sick children the ability to have insurance, to expand it and then we find out, well, there is 12 incarnations and it's not there,

then somebody blew it big time. either the white house and/or the democratic congress blew it big time if these sick children are not being covered. >> steve: absolutely. >> gretchen: something that also is not explicit in that 2300 pages are the word redistribution of wealth. but yesterday, howard dean who is it a physician and the leader of the democratic national committee, he said this. >> question is, in a democracy, where does the right balance between those at the top who are at 20% of the people do most of the consumer spending and so forth and so on, and those at the bottom. i think it -- when it gets out of whack as it did in the 20s and it has now, you need to do some redistribution. this is a form of redistribution. if you redistribute too much, then the system doesn't work 'cause you take out the incentive. >> steve: this is a form of redistribution. that's what the former head of the dnc just head. do we really have to get up and go to work today if the

government is going to -- >> it's not about health. it's about wealth? i thought it was about health. >> gretchen: a heck of a lot about wealth, too. unfortunately if you have wealth, you're not going to have it much longer. what are the republicans saying about the whole situation? let's listen to lindsey graham and jim demint. >> it's a house of cards, it's a ponzi scheme of the first order. it's going to blow up the deficit. it's going to affect every business, every family in this country. it was done by one party rule and it was a shame we had to go down this road. >> we'll find out in november who won or lost this battle. over 60% of americans still want republicans to fight to repeal this, so what i do next is i'm trying to replace those who voted for this bill, i want to repeal it and i want to replace it with some real reform that puts patients in charge of their

health care again. >> steve: okay. let's pose mr. schumer's point, that the more you get to know it, the more you like it. you've had a chance to chew over it a couple of days. do you like it more? e-mail us right now. the reason we ask is there is a brand-new gallup daily tracking poll. they have two polls that they track the president's approval. they got a weekly and a daily. and the very latest daily shows that 46% of americans approve of the president. 46 disapprove. it is a tie. >> gretchen: just last week he was up 51% on approval. that was the day he signed health care. so we'll see how that trend continues to go and whether or not the democrats or the republicans are correct. >> more americans disapprove of the health care law that has been signed into law. >> gretchen: let's talk about this. you remember those three navy seals who have been accused of when they captured this very well-known terrorist in september of 2009, the

accusation was that they punched him and that they were maybe not supposed to do that. now, believe it or not, they may go on trial and have their lives upended as a result. last week there was a very monumental move in this case in the sense that the judge decided to give some of the witnesses immunity so they could testify and apparently those witnesses are going to testify against the prosecution's witnesses about exactly what happened when this capture took place. >> that is an important development because these five witnesses will testify contrary to the one main prosecution witnesses and, of course, the defense is saying in this case that terrorists are trained to inflict punishment and harm on themselves so they can later complain that they've been tortured by their captors. so this is turning out to be a very tough time for these navy seals and it's really captured

the attention of the nation. >> steve: absolutely. there are a lot of people who are pulling for the seals. more on that later on throughout the day. meanwhile, 13 minutes after the top of the hour. we keep hearing how broke the country is, but by historic measure, we're philly rich! so what is the government doing wrong? the answer coming up next. >> gretchen: kids who send provocative pictures via text could be labeled. does this send the wrong message to teens? >> steve: l.o.l.

>> back on "fox & friends" at 16 minutes after the hour. with the amount of federal funds spent in the past year through bills and bailouts, it seems that the government is addicted to spending. so what's the cure?

>> gretchen: joining us is new york post columnist, michael goodwin. i hope you have the answer for us, because so many people in america are frustrated with all of this continued spending. >> right. what i think happened is just this kind of culture of entitlement is exploding everywhere and the answers just say no. government has to learn to say no to new spending demands. it's not as though government is broke. we see it in new york especially and a lot of state and local governments, the money is coming in like never before because of tax increases, because of the economic conditions, and yet, government never has enough because it spends everything it has and then borrows and then goes into deficit. now you have 40 states with some kind of deficit problem. many of them just because they're spending much, much more than they have. >> do our legislators who run our state governments and federal government, do they have this spending binge because they think if i provide benefits to

people, if i provide entitlements, they will like me and reelect me and i can say, look what i've done for you? is that he is what's going on? >> absolutely. i think that the idea of doling out public money has become the yardstick by which many legislators measure themselves and the same with chief executives, too. we see it in both parties. right now the republicans are the party of fiscal restraint, but that's not always been true. it certainly isn't true in new york. it wasn't true in the last republican congress. there really is a culture thing going on within government. >> gretchen: two conservatives are upset with president bush because they thought he spent too much. in essence, this is why the tea party movement came to life, right? >> yes. that is their initial thing. as the bailouts rolled out one by one and everybody was getting bailed out, every corporation and bank, every homeowner, every state, everybody was getting more and more, the tea party said, hey, that's enough. that's what the tea party movement originally was about in

this country. >> when the government gets so big, what does it do to the economy and what does it do to americans incentive to work? >> i'll give you a small example here in new york city. in the last year, because of the recession, the city lost 173,000 jobs. only 20,000 were in government. what that means is fewer people are working in the private sector to pay the taxes, to support the growing government. the government's expenses are growing, entitlements are growing and yet fewer people are working to support it. that means more tax, which creates more of a drain on the private economy. >> gretchen: thanks for that uplifting report. michael goodwin, always great to see you and read your columns. >> one of the best in the country. thank you. >> gretchen: coming up, teens caught sexting can be a hit or they can be hit with a felony. labeled a sex offender for life? now some lawmakers want to dial back those charges. is this sending the wrong message? >> like a scene out of the birds, but these are vultures and they're attacking who? senior citizens?

>> gretchen: 23 minutes after the top of the hour. a fox news alert we've been following. new amateur video showing the aftermath of a homicide bombing in a moscow subway system. two stations hit this morning during rush hour by female bombers, killing at least 37 people. dana lewis live at the scene. good morning to you. >> hi. the russian authorities are saying that these bombs were filled with bolts and nuts and they were about six pounds of tnt in both cases. we can show you the square. we'll pan over. this was the scene of the first bombing. it's the building where the head of the federal security services located, the successor to the kgb, that bomb after 8:00 o'clock this morning went off.

crowded subway, people moving onto the subway and moving off. the bomber in the second car a female suicide bomber and then about 42 minutes later in another metro not far from here on the same line, four stops up, again, another suicide bomber, female, apparently in the third car set off her explosives. already the head of the federal security service here saying that all fingers point to the caucuses. they believe they have some evidence that links it to that ongoing conflict in the caucuses and the chechen break away republic and also we've had prime minister putin speak out, terrorists who organized these attacks will be destroyed. so they're talking tough, trying to reassure russians after everybody has been rattled that the terrorists have been able to carry out these attacks in the heart of the capital of russia in moscow. back to you. >> gretchen: dana lewis live. thank you very much. >> steve: teen-agers in connecticut could be put on the

sex offender registry for sending provocative photos to each other, cell phones, it's called sexting. combination of sex messages via text. now some lawmakers want that changed. what's the right answer? we're joined by one of the bill's proponent, connecticut state representative and attorney page butler. good morning to both of you. >> good morning. >> steve: all right. representative, i understand they're going to vote on it today. >> yes. >> steve: what it would do is what is currently a felony, would be reduced to a misdemeanor because i saw a statistic, 20% of kids, according to this national survey, have sent naked pictures of either themselves or somebody else to somebody or forwarded them. so this is a big problem. >> absolutely. what that equates to is one out of five children actually admit to doing it, so you can imagine all those who haven't admitted to it. as the state of connecticut laws, there is a child pornography law. any minor child who would be facing such a charge would be

looking at a felony conviction and having to register as a sex offender. >> steve: because if you're sending a naked picture of somebody under 18, that's child porn. >> exactly. >> steve: all right. paige, you don't like this. >> i do not. i think the main issue here is accountability. i think if these teen-agers are old enough to engage in this explicit and sexual natured bebe hair, they're old enough to face severe consequences. i think that's the only way we're even able to attempt to prevent this behavior and this sexting. >> steve: one of the things that concerns me is that under your law, under your bill, teen-agers could send the dirty pictures to each other if it's consentual, but let's say the boyfriend and girlfriend have an argument two months from now, they had been sending these pictures to each other, then they have an argument. next thing you know, one of the parents says, look, your son sent my daughter this picture. next thing you know, the kid is in trouble.

>> exactly. and that's the reason why i'm proposing this new law that would make it a class a misdemeanor and not a felony, because, unfortunately, there are situations where it is consentual and it is an affirmative defense. however, there are real victims and keeping that in mind, we need to make sure that the punishment fits the crime. having the child have a felony and being registered on a sex offender registry list is not what's going to address the big problem. here is a lesser crime, there is a fine. still a crime. so there is still accountability. >> i think the problem is if we allow for leniency, we're not holding them accountable for their actions. i think you can look at the alarming results across the country. you have harassment, you have ridicule, you have people who are taking their own lives because of these acts of texting. i think the important thing is that we have severe consequences and that is the only way that we can prevent this exploitation. >> steve: who is right? e-mail us right now. do you think that sexting should

be a misdemeanor or a felony? thank you very much. straight ahead on this monday morning arc new poll shows a majority of americans don't want the health care plan. but pennsylvania governor ed rendell is not worried. >> i think as the months roll by it will actually help our chances, as more and more people get to understand what's in this bill, people are going to like it. >> steve: really? okay. the governor is going to be here next to talk to us live. and police officers get quite a surprise at the end of this wild chase. wait until you find out who is behind the wheel of that suv. then sean penn sticking up for hugo chavez again. the anti--american president of venezuela. one of his hollywood colleagues is taking him to task. she's taking him to task next on "fox & friends".

>> gretchen: fox news alert at half past the hour on the east coast. president obama now due back in washington in half an hour or so after making his first trip to afghanistan as commander in chief. he did meet with the troops and the afghan leaders and joining us live with more, lieutenant colonel oliver north. >> gretchen, unfortunately, most of the soldiers, sailors, marines here in afghanistan didn't know he was here because there is no real media, except for what we've got on fox news. but one thing that the president did say that was dead on, this is a war we can win and some of those who are going to win it are right here. lieutenant colonel phil zeman is the executive officer for 215 corps, the partner team working with the afghan national army. colonel, you've been out here for a long time working. you guys ready to fight? >> in parts they're ready to fight, but they've got work to

get a little better. >> give us a sense from where you see this heading. >> i think in a year or two, they'll be really functional. they're going to need some help along the way. as we move along, they'll move along with us and eventually we'll be able to reduce our efforts and reduce our presence with them and they'll take the load themselves. >> anybody at home you want to say hi to. >> i'd like to pass my love to my wife chris and kids, jake and grace. >> they're heros as well. it's not just americans working with our afghan counterparts, our british allies are here. captain gavin wilson is the executive officer of the training team from the first scots, the waterloo company. you guys have been out here with these fellows before. you've seen them fight, can they carry the fight to the enemy? >> i think they certainly can. we've been doing a bit of continuation combat. i'd be more than happy to partner with them. >> some of your soldiers are going to be out there with them?

>> we'll be handing them over, which makes the training we're doing all the more important to get it right. >> your regiment had a great anniversary. >> yesterday we had the 377th anniversary, us being the oldest regiment in the british army. >> congratulations. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for all you're doing. anybody at home? >> yeah. i'd like to say hi to my fiance, hi, nikki. >> you're a hero as well as colonel zeman's wife and family and all those who serve out here. gretchen, back to you. >> gretchen: all right. thank you for introducing those patriots to us. appreciate it. >> steve: 25 before the top of the hour. we've got other headlines on this monday. several suspects are due in court this morning after f.b.i. agents raided suspected militia compounds in michigan, ohio and indiana over the weekend. at least three people were arrested on gun charges when agents swarmed a number of houses. witnesses say they took out dozens of guns. the target of one raid is believed to be a christian militia group.

this man is a member of a different militia group. listen to him. >> they're convinced that the earth is in its last days and that they must rise up to rebuild a christian kingdom in the ashes of our country. >> steve: okay. more arrests, we understand, could be coming shortly. >> the most important time of the year for christians has begun, holy week is a celebration of christ's death and resurrection culminating sunday on easter. it started with palm sunday which commemorating jesus' entry into jerusalem with his disciples. >> gretchen: barbara bush in the hospital. she was admitted to houston's methodist hospital because she was not feeling well. she had heart surgery in 2009 for a narrowing heart valve and treated in 2008 for a perforated ulcer. >> and it's not a scene out of a hitchcock movie. it's reality at a retirement

community. hundreds of vultures taking up residence at the sun city community in georgetown, texas. the birds are eating the people's pet food, ripping up their barbecue covers, and they're clogging up the sky. vultures. >> steve: really? >> we see them every night circling all over and then we see them down on the creek when they're roosting. >> they're right overhead and that's the part i didn't care for because it smelled and the droppings would come down. >> people are making plans to scare the birds off using fireworks and even cannons. i'd like to see that. >> steve: let's look at what's going on weather wise. i understand we've got a tornado watch for portions of florida until 11:00 o'clock this morning. so beware if you're down there. as you can see, the line of thunderstorms, it's intense, goes right up along the coast of the outer banks, moving throughout raleigh area, right up through the big northeastern corridor cities. it is a wet start to this

workweek. balance of the country nice and dry. currently temperature readings are mainly 30s and 40s. 50s and 60s here in the eastern third as the storm moved through. 40s through much of texas at this hour on this monday. take a look at today's date. the rockies, 71 today in denver. beautiful day there. beautiful in albuquerque and across much of texas, a lot of sunshine. but throughout the northeast and the eastern third, 40s and 50s and 60s and some rain as well. >> gretchen: the driver leads police in new mexico on a wild chase that lasted for 12 miles. at some point the driver went the wrong way, speeding off the road and putting other people's lives in danger. police laid out spikes and that finally stopped the suv. and imagine the officer's surprise when there was a 14-year-old girl behind the wheel. there were two other teens in the car. they were all arrested. >> steve: kids! luckily they didn't do any damage to themselves or somebody else. meanwhile, 23 before the top of

the hour. democratic governors are going head to head with republican attorneys general in their states over state lawsuits meant to repeal national health care reform. but is this a legal battle or a political one? pennsylvania governor ed rendell joins us live this morning. good morning to you, governor. >> good morning. >> steve: we had heard -- we had bill mccollum from florida on last week and he was talking about how as soon as this was signed, they were going to go to court and sue the federal government. what they're saying is it's unconstitutional for the federal government to mandate the people buy insurance. you see this not as a legal debate, but as a political one. right? >> i do because there is no legal question. these lawsuits are frivolous. ronald reagan's former general, mr. freed, said the idea these suits could win is preposterous and that's ronde reagan's former general. there is no legal merit to them. it's just grand standing by a

number of attorney generals and why would you want to take the immediate short-term benefits away from your citizens? in pennsylvania in september, it means that no child can be denied coverage because they have a preexisting condition. it means 140,000 pennsylvanians go right now into a high risk pool. people who are so sick they can't get coverage. it means 400,000 seniors will get a 250-dollar check for the doughnut hole in the medicare part d program. if you're an attorney general, why do you want to take those short-term benefits away from your people? the way to get at this bill if you don't like it is to win the election in november and then try to repeal it or amend it or modify it. >> there are some people who think it's bigger than elections, that it's about the constitution and i don't think you'll disagree, there is no constitutional precedent at all for the federal government mandating that you or i buy a good or a service. it doesn't exist on the federal

level. how is that frivolous as a legal matter, when 13 attorneys generals elected by their state citizens, including the attorney general in your state who you're fighting with, how is that frivolous? >> well, first of all, it's not my terminology, that's ronald reagan's solicitor general. let's start with that. number one. number two, this federal government can regulate and mandate us to do a number of things. we have to have a passport if we want to leave the country. that's a mandate. insurance has been regulated by the federal government for decades and decades and decades. and by the way, the massachusetts law which was passed by governor romney at one of the leading republican candidates for president, has a mandate and it mandates massachusettsans get coverage and that law was upheld by the court. this is an open and shut, slam dunk case. legal experts are saying this is political grand standing and by the way, why do you want, if you're the attorney general, deny the short-term benefits

that accrue from this bill to your citizens in the meantime? if you don't like the bill -- >> governor, let me ask you this, we've talked about this earlier. you're talking about a short-term benefit in terms of providing insurance to sick children, children with preexisting conditions. there is a story in the "new york times" that quotes insurance superintendents across the country and lawyers and people in government that that's not, in fact, in the law that is signed by the president. >> it is, it takes effect not immediately. >> not until 2014? >> no, 2014 for we adults. for children it takes effect in september. by the way, did you happen to see in crowley, texas, a young baby who was born with an arterial defect in his heart and the insurance company denied coverage to tyler because he had a preexisting condition, a two-year-old kid? that stuff ends unless the attorney generals are successful.

that's what they're fighting to end, the ability to say no to insurance companies doing ridiculous things like that. >> gretchen: i think a lot of people on both sides of the fence would agree with that particular condition in the bill. i think the point peter is trying to bring up is that there is an article that something both democrats and republicans agree on, is not going to go into effect until 2014. how could that -- >> that's for adults. for children, it goes into effect six months after president obama signed the bill. so that would be in early september. you've got to distinguish, there are different parts to this. look, this was a complicated bill and most of it gets phased in over the next four years so that insurance companies, so that states, so that individuals, so that businesses could adapt to the changes. some of the -- some of the things go into effect right away. >> do you have the power to direct your attorney general not to bring the lawsuit? >> no, he's independently

elected. and by the way, i have a great deal of regard for him. he's a good person and a good lawyer and that's why i'm disappointed in him. he should know better. >> steve: all right. governor, we thank you very much for joining us live today. >> thanks very much. >> steve: 17 before the top of the hour on this monday. >> gretchen: coming up, the president was supposed to get a bump in poll numbers after health care was passed. that happened. but then the polls went down. a closer look at the reason why, next. >> then sean penn sticking up for hugo chavez. now one of penn's colleagues taking him to task. ma mar a -- maria conchita alonzo joins us live for that.

>> gretchen: welcome back. sean penn defending

anti--american hugo chavez again. listen to this. >> every day this elected leader is called a dictator here and we just accept it and accept it and this is main stream media who should truly there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies. >> gretchen: those comments sparked native actress to write a letter to sean penn and joins us live from los angeles. good morning to you, maria. >> good morning. >> gretchen: you decided to write this letter to sean penn. what do you say in the letter? >> anybody can find the letter and google it, open letter to sean penn. i think he contradicts himself a little bit there. he can say whatever he wants, that's what this country is all about, that you can speak up, but that is against the first amendment of this country of the constitution, you know, the freedom of speech. we have a lot of political prisoners in cuba and in

venezuela only because they have spoken against a regime that is hugo chavez regime, a totalitarian regime. by sean saying that says that he's a dictator should go to jail is his right to say it, but again, i'm repeating myself, that is, against the constitution. >> gretchen: it's kind of a cookie statement, is it not? he's saying that anyone here who calls chavez a dictator should go to jail. i mean, should we maybe know that sean penn is a little cookie or why is it important for you to write a letter? >> it's very important to me because everything he -- because when he stands up for someone that has hurt its people, not only venezuela, but he's involved with spreading the communism regime all over bolivia, other countries. here in the united states, even though many people don't know, he has a pr firm that, of

course, he pays a lot of money to, that is slowly indoctrinating little by little, his regime. so sean is a very intelligent human being, great actor, and either he is ignorant in the subject of venezuela and chavez, and by the way of the castro in cuba because he also likes them -- or i don't know why he is talking about that. the people should know the truth, you know. the corruption has increased in venezuela and poverty has gone up to 71%. hugo chavez -- i don't think he would like or any american would like that obama or whoever is the president -- >> gretchen: do us a favor and let us know if you actually hear back from your letter, from sean penn. that would be interesting. maria, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you.

>> gretchen: the president was supposed to get a poll numbers after health care passed, that happened. but the polls went down. a closer look at the reason why next. ll and i join you at the tp

of the hour. >> steve: all right. thanks. we'll be watching. meanwhile, president obama telling republicans bring it on. >> now that we passed it, they're already promising to repeal it. they're actually going to run on a platform of repeal in november. you've been hearing that. my attitude is, go for it. >> with comments like that, is the president acting more like he's on the campaign trail and less like he's in the oval office? joining me is director of the university of virginia center for politics, larry. good morning. >> good morning. >> what is this about? who is the president acting

like? the commander in chief, we know that in afghanistan, but on the campaign trail? >> well, of course, it's an election year, so i suppose he's out campaigning while also being president. that's what they normally do. but look, this is a very interesting week. this past week has been very interesting because obama had a great week. he got health care passed. he pulled off this afghanistan trip. he had the missile deal with the russians and yet, notice the polls did give him a bump up as expected. that's what normally happens in history when you have a week like that, but the bump has really already disappeared. health care is still as controversial as it was before and i think it will continue to be all the way to the november election. >> steve: then in november, larry, is it still about health care? i mean, we know that there are a lot of people who are angry that they jammed this through, but some say, look, we've been wanting this for a long time. so will it still be about health care or will it ultimately be

about jobs? >> this is very much about the economy. midterm elections almost always are. they're really about two things in this case. i think the economy is central. health care is going to be probably the number two issue, but there is an unspoken issue that nobody really ever talks much about, which really matters in midterms and it's called checks and balances. people like to limit presidents. does it matter whether it's a democrat or republican. they don't like one party to have everything. i heard more of this from people and i think that's underlying this midterm election. >> will this be a targeted midterm election in the sense, professor, that there will perhaps not be a national message coming out of the democratic party, but in districts where health care reform is popular, targeting health care reform, especially in the absence of newly created jobs, democrats say look what we

did on health care. >> well, that could be one approach they'll take. i don't think it's possible to avoid nationalizing this election. it's because we have the third polarizing president in a row. bill clinton was a polarizer, george bush was and barak obama is one. and when you have a polarizing president, these midterm elections tend to be nationalized. it's very tough for candidates to run on local issues when people want to know where do you stand vis-a-vis the president? >> steve: very good. he knows something about the president. he runs the center for politics at uva. larry, it's going to be a rainy day. i suggest you make sure you're not out on the quad. stay in the classroom. >> i will do -- i do that anyway. absolutely. >> steve: larry, thank you very much. we're going to take a time out. >> back in two minutes on "fox & friends."

>> gretchen: fox news alert. the president has returned home to the united states. you're looking at a live picture right now from andrews air force base where air force one just landed. the president returning from that surprise trip to afghanistan yesterday where he addressed the troops. due to the bad weather, president obama will go back to the white house not on marine one, the chopper. he's going to go back via motorcade instead. >> steve: it's the cool thing about being president because it looks as if he was scheduled to arrive right now. they arrived ten minutes early. fantasti