>> o'donnell: today on "face the nation." after years of negotiating a deal emerges to prevent iran from building a nuclear weapon. >> i'm confident that we can show that this deal is good for the security of the united states for air allies for the world. >> that may be easier said than done as critics both home and abroad have already raised significant concerns that it's going to work. in iran, to comply only use nuclear power for peace. we'll talk to one of the men who helped negotiate the deal energy sect earn nest moniz one of the top nuclear scientists. and key critic republican credit lindsey graham. also talk to popular republican presidential candidate rick

santorum. in indiana and openings where. plus reaction from the human rights campaign tas to where the next fight will be. and we'll get update on the final four and look forward to tomorrow's big game. that with our all-star panel because this is "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs good morning, happy easter and pass over. bob is off today. we begin with the deal struck between the u.s. and iran. easter mass this morning the pope praised as opportunity for peace. but many question remains. here is how the proposed deal works. iran would reduce total number of centrifuges from about 19,000 to just over 5,000 enriching uranium. that is the time it could take iran to build a bomb for at least one year. iran must allow international inspectors into all of the

nuclear sites and reduce stockpiles of nuclear fuel and modify plutonium reactor which could have produced fuel for a bomb. once inspectors have verified that progress the u.s. and europe will remove economic sanctions leveed on the economy. the president called it a historic deal. >> it is a good deal. a deal that meets our core objectives. this framework would cut off every pathway that iran could face to develop a nuclear weapon. >> o'donnell: take a listen to israel's benjamin netanyahu. >> such a deal does not block iran's path to the bomb. it paves iran's path to the bomb. >> o'donnell: joining me from new york is the secretary of energy dr. ernest moniz a flush physicist was at the table alongside secretary of state

john kerry working to hammer out the specific details of this agreement. secretary moniz it has been a long couple of weeks certainly doing this deal. i want to get your take on some of the news this morning. first, the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu said this morning that this is a bad deal. listen. >> not a centrifuge is destroyed or single facility is shut down including underground facilities that they built illicitly. will continue enriching urine familiar. they will have unlimited capacity to build infrastructure. >> o'donnell: technically speaking what the prime minister said is true? >> we certainly have very different view of the facts. first of all today the break-out time, this will immediately get us over a year, it will get us

there with almost instantaneous recognition of any attempts to evade the deal and will give us plenty of time to respond diplomatically or otherwise. we have blocked tall of these pathways to a bomb and we should also emphasize this is not a ten-year deal this is a long term arrangement. there's no sense that there will be lot of phases starting with extremely stringent restrictions. hopefully comply for a long time, build up confidence we have ten-year restrictions, 15-year restrictions, 25-year restrictions and forever restrictions. this is a long-term program not something that will kind of go away in a few years. >> o'donnell: you said hopefully they will comply. how will you know that they are complying? >> we will know because this understanding agreement will have built in unprecedented

access and transparency. we will have eyes on, principally through international the entire supply chain of uranium going back to the mines the mills continuous surveillance of centrifuge production, we'll have continuous surveillance of centrifuge facilities themselves. we will have by the way for plutonium pathway all of the spent fuel from the newly designed reactor which produces much less plutonium all that fuel. it won't even be plutonium in the country for the lifetime of the reactor. i repeat. the lifetime of the reactor. these are very strong. this is a fail to meet any of these requirements we are going to know through again our access and transparency that will lead not only to us but international community the p5 plus one taking

the appropriate actions. >> o'donnell: one of the concerns however that you will have this unprecedented access and transparency at these declared facilities where there will be some uranium enrichment what about covert effort, how will you know if something is being done covertly? >> we started from the beginning to address all the pathways. uranium, plutonium and covert. covert relies upon the transparency issues but i want to emphasize is that the iran will from day one start complying with something called the additional protocol. what this means they will have access not just to the deployed facilities but also to undeclared sites even sites that may not have nuclear materials. there will be a process a time limited process in which ones we establish the suspicion and go through that process iran will have very short time to grant that tack says or will be judged

out of compliance. >> o'donnell: also in the news this morning the "new york times" reports that the fact sheets that were put out by the two countries that there are some noteworthy differences which have raised the question of whether the two sides are entirely on the same page. the key difference is on the question of the pace and timing of the sanctions. iran believes that the sanctions will be lifted immediately. you have said they will be phased out, which one is it? >> first of a you will, my understanding is that certainly in most dimensions the iranian fact sheet is consistent but clearly emphasizes different parts of the agreement and admit some parts of the agreement. first give an example, what you raised initially. you said they will have just over 5,000 ken trifinals operating, they do not drop of 19,000. more importantly do in the mention apparently additional

constraints. their stockpile of uranium will drop from ten tons to 300 kilograms that is 97% reduction. that is a very, very major constraint on what they can do. in terms of any possible break out. on sanction make it very, very clear, the sanctions really kicks in only when they have complied with the core nuclear restrictions. that's what gets us to this two-month to one-year break out time so that's when the sanction relief will really kick in. >> o'donnell: mr. secretary iran still remains a state sponsor of terror and will remain so. how would lifting of these sanctions which would deliver billions of dollars in new money to iran how can you justify that when iran is the chief stabilizer in the middle east? >> first of all there's no question that we will have many more issues with iran. you mentioned them, terrorism

syria, yemen you name it. disagreement in no way less sense our -- importance of our working against them, supporting our allies and friends in the region, very strongly. the thing is, however would we prefer to be addressing those with iran having a nuclear bomb or even threat of having a nuclear bomb versus situation which we have essentially complete confidence that they are complying or face the consequences of noncompliance. >> o'donnell: secretary moniz, good to have you here, thank you very much. we want the turn now to republican senator lindsey graham in carson, south carolina, this morning. senator, you heard the energy secretary he said this is the best option to prevent iran from building a nuclear weapon. >> well, my view is probably the

best that barack obama with iranians, because they don't fear or do they respect him. our allies in the region don't trust the president. here is the question question for the world s. there a better deal to be had? i think so. what i would suggest if you can't get there with this deal to keep the interim deal in place, allow new president in 2017 democrat or republican, take a crack at the iranian program. obama is a flawed negotiator. his foreign policy had failed on multiple fronts. nobody in the region trusts him iranians do not fear or respect him he'll never be able to get the best deal. the best deal i think comes with the new president, hillary clinton would do better, everybody on our side, except maybe rand paul can do better. that is one way of looking at this program keeping the interim deal in place it's been fairly successful have a new crack at it with a new president that doesn't have the baggage of obama.

>> o'donnell: the president posed a question listen to what he said. >> do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented backed by the world's major powers, is a worse option than risk of another war in the middle east? >> o'donnell: your response? you said this is the best option out there if they don't negotiate or get something only other option is a military one. >> i don't buy that for one minute. it's the best deal he could get. the question is, is barack obama the best person to deal with the iranians given his miserable foreign policy failure. is it really -- does anybody really believe iranians will take billions of dollars we're about to give them and build hospital and schools? how many ken trifinals should a nation have is military leadership called for destruction of israel during the negotiation. how many centrifuges should a

nation have, the largest sponsor of state terrorism. does anybody in their right blind believe that iran's behavior is going to change because you give them more money and more centrifuges to make a bomb? what will the arabs do in response to this deal? this deal doesn't dismantle one centrifuge doesn't close one site. i believe there is a better deal. i don't want a war but at the end of the day i don't want to give iran the tools and capability to continue to destroy the mid east and one day attack us by building bigger missiles. until they say they will not destroy the state of israel, until stop their behavior he'd be nuts to give them more money and more capability. >> o'donnell: one of the other options one that you have propose asked tougher sanctions. but i want to ask you about the efficacy of sanctions is the "new york times" is reported that iran has about few hundred working centrifuges in 2003 then thousands, took over now 19,000

centrifuges, even though we have had the toughest economic sanctions in place iran has still funded their nuclear program and advanced to two to three month break out time. i talked to people involved in negotiations say the whole point of sanctions was to bring the iranians to the table that that has worked but this is part of the deal. >> i think it hats worked. i think the bush administration they were miserable failure when it came to controlling iran's nuclear ambition. having been at the table was result of sanction, is that the congress passed 100-nothing. please understand the following. i think congress will require any deal negotiated with the iranians to come to the congress for arrive radio before we lift sanctions. i don't mind giving time between now and june to put this deal together. when you listen to the iranians, almost talking to two different people.

i support the idea of giving them time to put the deal together but i insist that congress review the deal, debate and vote on it before it becomes final. we should continue the sanction under the interim agreement it's worked pretty well for the world, controlled iran's nuclear ambitions they get some money but do not do a final deal until you have the best opportunity to give the best result. require iran to change its behavior, stop destroying the mid east, stop bringing down governments one after another stop destroying death to israel when they change the behavior, allow new president without baggage of barack obama to negotiate a deal. this deal leads to arab break out, a nuclear program like iranians, i fear that israel cannot live with this deal because it gives iran too much capability and too much money to wreak havoc throughout the region. >> o'donnell: senator lindsey graham. nice to have you here.

happy easter. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> o'donnell: we'll be right back. i care deeply about the gulf. i grew up in louisiana. i went to school here. i've been with bp ever since. today, i lead a team that sets our global safety standards. after the spill we made two commitments. to help the gulf recover and become a safer company. we've worked hard to honor both. bp has spent nearly 28 billion dollars so far to help the gulf economy and environment. and five years of research shows that the gulf is coming back faster than predicted. we've toughened safety standards too. including enhanced training... and 24/7 on shore monitoring of our wells drilling in the gulf. and everyone has the power to stop a job at any time if they consider it unsafe. what happened here five years ago changed us. i'm proud of the progress we've made both in the gulf and inside bp.

>> o'donnell: the iran deal in perspective turn to some of the best in the business, margaret brennan is state department core upon dent is covering the negotiations in switzerland. david ignatious is columnist for the "washington post." jeffrey goldberg and david sanger also just back from switzerland. welcome to all of you. david ignatious let me start with you you said this framework is better than many feared why? >> i take the specific provisions you summarized those at the beginning of the show, just we're better in most dimensions than we had been led to expect. expecting centrifuge number on the order of 6500. about 5,000. we were expecting a cap on enrichment to come down from

7,000 to 300 is a very substantial drop. the inspection procedures generally look stronger, more robust than we expected. there's some problems in this deal that really need to be noted. you pressed the secretary moniz about different between u.s. and iranian statement. did he not give a clearance to that. the reason is that right now there are two differences, two versions of this. we're going to find out between now and june which one is going to prevail finally. >> o'donnell: how could this deal still fall apart? there are lots of issues to be worked out. >> you needed two versions to go back and political constituencies in tehran and washington. some of them, people will use to their own political advantage on both sides. you did see that the top iranian

negotiators, wait a second, isn't exactly accurate how these sanctions will be lifted. he really zeroed in on that. syrian officials say they knew the fact sheet there is nothing inaccurate. so much murkiness how sanctions will be lifted, implemented triggered, tweaked at the u.n. security council. that has to be hammered out. in closing this deal if it's june 30th we'll be on it. >> o'donnell: how could this deal still fall apart? >> a few things, one of the them is sanctions as we were covering them, the sanctions were one of those issues that secretary kerry just could not say. second on sanctions they have set up a somewhat murky system for what happens if the united states says we think there's a covert plant iranians say there

isn't. then there's going to be some way of adjudicating this, not sure what that is. we're not sure to get on military sites. >> o'donnell: that's the question. highway can we trust iran. the president in his statement said, we don't need to trust iran we'll have unprecedented access. >> but that's one of the core issues which is, we're not -- a not getting access to the military sites which is where they have been doing this apparently, some of the research on nuclear weapons development. but the broader question ask that we don't understand yet the way of think of it is, a flame work agreement i would emphasize framework rather than agreement. we don't know what is inside this. because they don't know. we don't know if inspectors can make surprise inspections, if all facilities will be open, if suddenly discover another facility allowed to go into this? there are million questions about this. to answer the question to david

there are dozen ways this can fall apart. >> o'donnell: one of the chief criticisms of this deal you heard from prime minister benjamin netanyahu it doesn't dismantle any facility, infrastructure still in place. allow iran to be a threshold state. >> there is something to it. i would say one of the hardest concession, that administration had to make was allowing ability of the centrifuges in deep underground facilities that can only be reached by one -- no way. that was very tough because when president obama first revealed existence of this site in 2009, had to be dismantled everybody had to come out. secretary moniz would say we're letting them have the face-saving element of keeping this open. be no material, nothing to make a bomb with. his judgment as nuclear

scientist is much better to let them have the face saving part not have the material. the optics of it are pretty bad allow prime minister to say this. >> to be the most important issue, more important issue is the r&d what this agreement will allow iranians to do maintain vast infrastructure to do research and development in enrichment and other aspects of the nuclear program. everything remains in place. there will be inspectors apparently watching most of these things, will know in most cases if something is going awry. but the infrastructure remains. >> o'donnell: what about that criticism that this administration was so eager to get a deal done that they made a great deal of concessions? >> i think one of the principles here this idea not destroying but rather limiting iran's program is going to be concession in some way that is going to be the hardest for the

administration to sell on the hill. it is very hard to explain as secretary moniz tried to, we can go all along production line and limit things, but adding up that formula to explain that we've got this under control is really hard. and allowing uranium with, not dismantling anything when it comes to infrastructure is what the premise of this whole thing is. diplomacy is a win. you captain have one victor truly you can say we can limit this, do that. but that's what is going to be so hard to politically to sell. >> o'donnell: not only to sell to congress but to the gulf states. i thought very interesting that he called the king of saudi arabia before he called israeli prime minister netanyahu who invited all of the gulf states to camp david something likely happen in may. what is their chief concern? >> the biggest danger under this deal is that the gulf states will say okay, this is a deal

with iran. we want the same terms. in other words we will enter into a period of proliferation essentially say we want to be threshold just like iran. and that is a world so much enriched uranium, so many ways that material could get to a nuclear device or bomb, much more dangerous world. libbed see graham said, this is best deal president obama could have negotiated. that's a weird sort of back hand compliment i guess. but he said, i'm prepared to give him the necessary three months to get this deal done if congress will in fact back off and let the president finish this final agreement that is significant.

i thought it was an important statement. >> david hit on a key point which is that president obama has said repeatedly, most important goal preconvenient nuclear arms race. what is coming up is arab states is crucially important if the saudis go. >> o'donnell: we'll talk more about that, many of you are coming back. for now we'll be right back. 40% of the streetlights in detroit, at one point, did not work. you had some blocks and you had major thoroughfares and corridors that were just totally pitch black. those things had to change. we wanted to restore our lighting system in the city. you can have the greatest dreams in the world, but unless you can finance those dreams, it doesn't happen. at the time that the bankruptcy filing was done, the public lighting authority had a hard time of finding a bank. citi did not run away from the table like some other bankers did. citi had the strength to help us go to the credit markets and raise the

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>> o'donnell: most of you we'll be right back with a lot more fakes the nation. stay with us.

>> o'donnell: well coal back to "face the nation," i'm norah o'donnell. bob is off. i sat down with 2012 presidential candidate rick santorum. good to have you here. let's talk about the debate that's been going on in indiana and arkansas. first indiana. was it right for governor pence to change the language in the bill? >> i was hoping he wouldn't. i think that the language that he had is better language. this is acceptable language. i voted for this language. i certainly can't say that it's a bad bill. it's a good bill. it doesn't do a lot of things, doesn't really open the debate up on some of the more current issues. i think that the current language that the federal law is now in indiana is has been held pretty much to have pretty limited view of what reeling us freedom is in the workplace.

and i think we need to look at as religious liberty now being pushed harder to provide more religious protections. that bill doesn't do that. >> o'donnell: what now do you think with this new language change? >> i think what we need to look at is, we -- against any person. no business should discriminate because of who you are. but it should have the ability to say we're not going to participate in certain activity that we disagree with on religious point of view. i don't think frank ly either bill does that but second one that governor pence backed away from. >> o'donnell: here is what the language says. it makes clear that law does not allow businesses to refuse services facilities, use of public accommodations, goods employment or housing to any member or members of the general public based on race, color religion ancestry, age national origin, disability,

sex, sexual orientation gender identity or united states military service. with this language if you were a wedding planner and you did not want to be involved in planning a same-sex marriage, this language would not allow you to opt out. >> i'm not a legal scholar but i can tell you the way that previous laws have been ruled that they have not provided any type of protection for that. >> o'donnell: you think that wedding planners who don't want to plan a same-sex marriage should be allowed to -- >> matter of accommodation. toll prance is a two-way street. if you are a print shop and you are a gay man should you be forced to print god hates fags for the west borough baptist church. this is really the case here. should the government force you to do that.

and that's what these cases are about. the government coming in saying we're going to make you do this. this is where i think we just need some space to say let's have some tolerance be a with-way street. >> o'donnell: what is behind many of these religious freedom law is that gay marriage is now legal in more than 30 states so this is trying to protect business owners who don't want to be involved in same-sex weddings? >> attitudes in this country change. when those attitudes change we run into a whole bunch of new issues. questions how dough we deal with that in respecting people on beau sides of the issues. that's wherever you have to differentiate between the person who they are and discrimination -- unwillingness to participate in actions because they're inconsistent with your religious beliefs. >> o'donnell: are you going to run for president? >> i'm going through the process that i hi 17 or 18 other folks

are going through trying to determine whether your message is a good message delivering a message on making sure that we have the message that unifies the country. one of the things that really bothers me the most of what we see going on in the capital building divisiveness that we see in washington d.c. i think people are looking for someone to bring us together, i put a book out called "blue collar conservatives" whole idea that we bring those who are being left behind by this economy, to give them an opportunity to be able to reach that american dream again. i think republicans frankly have been very weak on that. there's real opportunity for candidate to come forward with a plan that's going to provide upper mobility for everybody. and unite the country in way that we haven't seen in a long time. >> o'donnell: do you think mitt romney lost because religious conservatives stayed home? >> i think there's a lot -- i wouldn't point to that specifically there is certainly evidence that that happened.

i think there is also evidence that he didn't do very good job reaching out to the very voters i talked about. there's a lot of folks who are disingenuous with either parties. what is the way forward for the 70% of americans who don't have college degree, economic opportunity like everybody else. nobody is talking about that. >> o'donnell: the republican party focused on a social conservative issue with the -- what was going on in indiana and arkansas. >> i think there's room for lots of debates on lots offish ice. hopefully have very great conversation about nation natural secure in this election and the iranian deal. lots of issues to be discussed. i've made center focus of what i've been talking about the fact that 90% of american workers don't own their own business. they are working for businesses. and that republicans have message that appeals to their place in the world today and their opportunity to rise in

society. i'm excited that some republicans now not many, some are following along with with i've been talking about the past several years begin to talk about the issues that is encouraging sign for me. >> o'donnell: more on religious freedom and laws in this country and backlash that forced changes in the arkansas and indiana laws we are joined by sarah warbelow the largest gay civil rights organization. you heard from senn for santorum said this law would have protected a gay business owner from having to do work on something that he finds offensive or discriminatory. would that have been important protection to have? >> on the contrary. legislation would have none dough much thing. it allowed individuals to use their religious beliefs to underline other types of laws that provide protection. not only against gay lesbian

bisexual transgender people but against other religious minorities and some instances against african americans and asian americans as well. >> o'donnell: we saw indiana change its law arkansas as well. where is the next fight? >> well, there are over 100 bills that have been introduced in the state legislatures this year attempting to target the lgbt community, in particular, we're going to be turning our vision to states like texas and south carolina that have bills similar to what we saw in indiana already in the works. >> o'donnell: i understand there's going to be tech titans coming out monday in order to urge laws that prevent discrimination against gay and lesbians including mark zuckerberger and larry page of google. why is this happening now? >> the tech industry is joining

many other important forces in the community from apple to wal-mart to angie's list who are looking at their employees' whole lives. these companies already offer nondiscrimination protections in employment for their employees they aren't sure that outside of the workforce their employees are not going to be turned away going to a restaurant, when they go grocery shopping, when they go to purchase a home or rent apartment. non-distrim nation are critical to every area of their employees' lives. >> o'donnell: how many currently not exist? >> currently only 21 states in the district of columbia have laws that protect on basis of sexual orientation, 17 of those on the basis of gender identity. there's a lot of work to be done. >> o'donnell: good to have you here. thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> o'donnell: we'll be right back.

i care deeply about the gulf. i grew up in louisiana. i went to school here. i've been with bp ever since. today, i lead a team that sets our global safety standards. after the spill we made two commitments. to help the gulf recover and become a safer company. we've worked hard to honor both. bp has spent nearly 28 billion dollars so far to help the gulf economy and environment. and five years of research shows that the gulf is coming back faster than predicted. we've toughened safety standards too. including enhanced training... and 24/7 on shore monitoring of our wells drilling in the gulf.

and everyone has the power to stop a job at any time if they consider it unsafe. what happened here five years ago changed us. i'm proud of the progress we've made both in the gulf and inside bp. >> o'donnell: more on iran and other news we turn to our panel again we're joined by margaret brennan our state department correspondent david ignatious with the "washington post." jeffrey goldberg a national correspondent for the atlantis. let's turn back the issue. between u.s. and israeli even larger now? >> this is interesting moment coming up, because the president right after this framework agreement was announced did a

couple of things. immediately reached out to the gulf states of the arabs immediately reached out to benjamin netanyahu. not his favorite thing to do during the day. but he did it and they're going to be talking in the coming days and weeks about strengthening the defense relationship between israel and united states. i think the white house is cognizant of the fact they have to work with middle east allies to make them feel somewhat allayed about this. also good politics for the white house. if you give the arabs something give israelis something maybe then their objections to this deal will be muted. >> o'donnell: what do we have to give them? >> do various things for israel, making sure that their military edge is maintain the. various other sort of security guarantees and close cooperation. israelis feel or is really government is feel that the u.s. is drifting away from it or obama administration is drifting away now is the time to stitch that back together. >> o'donnell: look at this

recent tweet from israeli prime minister map of the region leading to syria iraq, lebanon egypt, yemen the title being iran's aggression during the nuclear negotiations. that's one of the criticisms, margaret, this didn't deal with iran's a lot of these proxy groups being she destabilizer. >> secretary was able to answer your question about that. this windfall for iran financially, how do you control where the money goes. which is a big question that people can't quite answer. but what administration would say as well, we are keeping other sanctions on iran as it relates to human rights abuses, et cetera, that i think at the u.n. some of the biggest embargos on arms will still be maintained we have some lever of control there. but it's interesting, i interviewed secretary kerry right after he unveiled this deal or announcement, framework for a deal, some would say.

he responded in a way that suggested israeli criticism was pavlovian, they're going to say this regardless. it's not based on fact. i think as the administration makes its argument to congress are going to rely on the science of it. see more and more secretary moniz as the credibility for administration and arguing the science of this. and leaning more and more on that. they are dismissing the rhetoric coming from israel as rhetoric. >> certainly administration is trying to make that case, look at the science of this. also just step back for a moment abut this being a moment for president obama who has spent recordly more time on iran than almost any other issue in terms of foreign policy. does he have any foreign policy legacy without getting something on iran? >> this is without question the biggest thing he has tried to do. he said it from his inaugural address in january 2009.

specifically spoke reached out to iran, engagement based on mutual respect -- >> o'donnell: clench their fist. >> now six years later here we are with this tentative deal, a deal that has struck many observers in the u.s. a little better than expected. reaction israel is a little less angry than expected. many iranians are jubilant at the end of their isolation, he can say the biggest thing i tried to do in foreign policy, i am succeeding at. i think that is important politically, important for him in terms of his legacy, hillary clinton was a key part of making this secret diplomacy work in the beginning sheets part of it too. going to be tough for republicans to run hard against this if the elements are now shaky in the deal, can be firmed up in a way that looks like constrain iran more.

>> o'donnell: i have a look at potential republican candidate for 2016 all were very critical of this deal. >> i think the real legacy question is not going to be answered during the 2016 campaign. i think david said the critical word which is "if" if they can reach this agreement by junef iran abides by the deal assuming that the deal goes through. and if it turns out that it's not unleashing destabilizing force in the region giving iran more money or the arms race with other neighbors. then it could affect president obama's long term foreign policy. because right now it looks very, very messy. if he had solved this iran problem or at least he could then look back on him as having opened real relationships with two important countries that we do not have relationships with at the start one being cuba, second being iran.

but in the short term in 2016 it is going to be a partisan battle. along the lines that senator graham was suggesting. >> o'donnell: jeffrey you talked about the president and his relationship with the gulf states. he's trying to convene a summit, incredible gathering of leaders from saudi arabia, from bahrain kuwait uae one off the top of my head. an effort by the president to show unity. does he really have convincing to do? does he have to sell some of them new advanced weaponry as has been suggested. >> get a lot of advanced weaponry already. i don't know how much of a sale it is. no it's reassurance meeting. it's a meeting to convince people that he's not actually shifting american focus to iran trying to make iran the principle stabilizer. very important part of this, he

is trying to convince these arab states look, you don't have to go down the nuclear path yourselves because we've got your back. again, it's all about trying to convince the saudis not to go to their friends in pakistan and buy some nuclear weapons. to put it bluntly. because then you have what president obama described as a nightmare. now is the time to reassure all of america's allies in the middle east. >> i think some ways, recognition that something the administration tried to ignore or deny which is they say this nuclear deal with iran is not connected to anything else in the middle east, yet it is inextricably licked to every conflict in the middle east. conversations need to be had. i think one interesting development is also to see what they have chosen to do in yemen what many other countries have chosen to go along with them on. essentially some kind of arab

response force. no shortage of weapons. >> one of the things that the arab states is asking for is a little bit more assertiveness against iran, syria lebanon. >> one other thing we need to be keeping our eye on not just selling job that the president needs to do with arab states, with israel. selling job with congress. after this easter recess, congress is going to come back, it is going to -- dash senate has been asserting, i hear commander in chief we'll just sit back whatever you want us to do with the sackss, fine, we'll go along. administration is understanding. congress is going to assert its role. has started to do, know it needs to do, serious selling job with congress because this is going to come up that is going to require congressional role in

undoing the congressional end of the sanction, is that is important piece. including senator schumer soon to be, not that soon, senate minority leader in waiting signed on this to bill this would assert the congressional role. keep an eye on that. >> o'donnell: iran was one of the big headlines this week, the other was debate over religious freedom law in indiana and arkansas arc. how would you characterize what happened this week? we had two republican governors who essentially backed down revived laws in the face of this very strong opposition and criticism. >> it was a remarkable week. i think what we're seeing here with religious freedom laws and various states, others have lot of work. but really the lack of the culture wars. no longer going to be seeing republican candidates republican

strategists affirmatively putting anti-gay measures on the ballot in order to turn out their votes at the expense of democrats, rather both on business end because corporations are with the program of anti-discrimination on demographic end because young voters republican and democrats will not tolerate this. those who want to wage the cultural wars are on losing end of the battle. >> we'll have supreme court decision on same sex marriage. this debate is not over. >> supreme court's final judgment whether it is constitutionally protected for gays to marry will significantly change the debate. i thought this what was this week, you saw republican party caught between where their base is feeling passionately we should not be forced to do things that we religiously don't believe in. you heard rick santorum say really, even more attention to

that. coming up against reality that the republican party today like the country increasingly accepts gay marriage. majorities of white mainstream protestants of white catholics of hispanic catholics all of those support gay marriage. the party is stuck between its base and where the country is. we saw this week, saw jeb bush rush to be right there with mike pence then -- all alone wondering, maybe i shouldn't have done that quite so quickly. >> want to quickly disagree with what david said i think that supreme court decision, who would have thought -- we know which way the supreme court is going. i don't think it's going to change in terms of the debate because country is already where the majority of it is, where the supreme court will turn out of same sex marriage. the next frontier, the lining of

this debate is put in place anti-discrimination laws that most people think are already there to protect -- >> once you have the decision say is to mike pence this is unconstitutional, you can't quite say that today. >> o'donnell: debate will continue. thank you all. coming up next a look at the final four. the top prize.

>> o'donnell: finally today march madness comes to an end tomorrow night on cbs. indianapolis with the men's national crab basketball getting -- the duke blue devils and badgers of wisconsin. more on the match up we're joined by cbs sports sideline reporter tracy he wolfson, good to see you. undefeated no more. how did wisconsin beat kentucky? >> unbelievable, right? i mean, we flew it would be such a close game, actually bo ryan before the game told his team, jab, jab jab. he compared it to a prize fight. that's kind of what it was. back and forth one of those epic games we'll look back on in a

few years just say wow. i think how wisconsin did was they just imposed their will. they are playing with a chip on their shoulder they lost to kentucky last year in the final four they want to get bo ryan that first championship. they want sam dekker and frank kaminsky get that championship. now wisconsin faces duke on monday night. my cohost gale king and charlie rose are so excited we'll see ap player of the year, frank kaminsky duke's star freshman jalil okafor, what a match up? >> unbelievable. they have faced each other earlier in the season duke won that one. but you can look back to december to be honest none of that matters. both of these teams are different. they have changed. that is going to be the match up. any time you talk about duke you talk about okafro.

to watch those two go at it underneath the basket, it's going to be one for the ages. again, we will all be watching on cbs. >> o'donnell: sports reporter tracy wolfson great to have you. we'll be right back. and now telcos using hp big data solutions are feeling the love, too. by offering things like on-the-spot data upgrades an idea that reduced overcharge complaints by 98%. no matter how fast your business needs to adapt if hp big data solutions can keep wireless customers smiling, imagine what they can do for yours. make it matter.

>> o'donnell: that's it for us today. bob will be back next week. wish you all a happy easter and passover. see you tomorrow on "cbs this morning" thank you for watching "face the nation."

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