finally up here to us. you have a great, great -- >> three. >> what are you doing? >> counting you down. one. have a wonderful weekend. >> here's chuck todd with "the daily rundown." >> red lined. did syria's leader intentionally use chemical weapons on his own people? we'll have the latest on what the u.s. is prepared to do if he did and what questions remain unanswered as president obama faces a potential tipping point for a military confrontation. back in boston, the surviving bombing suspect gets moved from the hospital to a federal prison as leaders from new york city detail what the two brothers allegedly planned to do if they had made it to manhattan and no more dynasties? the wife of one bush president and mother to another, says the country doesn't need another bush. but is she really only talking about her family? good morning from washington.

i'm chuck todd. there's a lot to get to this morning. we've got a two hour show that we're going to pack into one hour. it's april 26th. happy friday. my first reads of the morning. u.s. intelligence agencies believe the syrian government has used chemical weapons in its civil war raising new questions about american intervention in that two-year conflict. the administration, which felt it had no choice in confirming the intelligence assessment given they knew it would go public on its own, now seems to be trying to buy time to determine a response. chuck hagen traveling in the middle east thursday was the first obama official to talk to reporters. >> u.s. intelligence community assesses with some degree of varying confidence that the syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in syria. specifically, the chemical agent sarin. >> john kerry will hold a

classified about five minutes from now. yesterday, he was on capitol hill talking about this, too. now, u.s. intelligence official believe that traces of the nerve agent were found in blood sam p principles of an attack last month in aleppo. over the past year and a half, the president has warned the use of chemical weapons would be a game changer. >> update us on your latest anies on syria and in particular, what do you envision using u.s. military if simply for nothing else keeping up with chemical weapons. >> a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. >> on capitol hill thursday, the hawkish chatter began immediately. john mccain leading the charge for military intervention in multiple appearances. >> i think it's pretty obvious that red line has been crossed and the president has not wanted to engage in syria in any way,

meaningful way, for a couple of years while 70 to 80,000 people have been slaughtered. it's been one of the most shameful chapters in american history. >> but though members on both sides of the aisle said action must be taken in syria, nobody seemed to be sure what that action should be. john boehner said in a statement, quote, it's past time for the president to have a robust conversation with the congress and american people about how best to bring assad's tyranny to an end. notice what he used there. allies including france, britain and -- have accused assad of using chemical weapons. it repeated again it has persuasive intelligence and the foreign min terror of qatar had a dire warning for the obama administration. >> we have one way only. kill and kill and kill until you

win. later, don't blame us or you blame yourself because it will be our mistake together, not to intervene. >> the white house officials say they have too many questions about the orgin of the chemical weapon. the so-called chain of custody and they want confirmation they were used intentionally and not accidentally or by a rogue agent. just the day before in cairo on wednesday, hagel himself expressed doubts about israeli claims at the time that chemical weapons had been used. >> one thing, evidence is another. i think we have to be careful here. >> again, that was hagen then and hagel earlier. the white house said thursday it wants an investigation to provide evidence, but syria so far has refused to let inspectors in. the administration is is buying time to assess international support for any kind of intervention. if the president were to intervene, it's more likely the

president would try to rally support for a libya-like coalition. u.s. only agreed to intervene after securing support in the gulf states. the u.s. also hopes to get russia, which has privately warned assad about chemical weapons, to become a partner in this. today, president obama meets with king abdullah at the white house. this is a domestic economic problem for jordan. and that's something that he's going bring up with the president today. hanging over the debate about intervention in syria is the last time an administration had intelligence on a country use i using weapons of mass destruction that turned into a march to military intervention. the dedication of the bush library in dallas added an immediacy to that shadow that hangs over the syria debate or at least that the white house was being eager to use it as a

way to put the brakes on a rush to war yesterday. the white house's liaison referred to iraq wmd in the letter asking whether assad had used weapons. given the stakes involved and what we have learned from our own recent experience, intelligence assessments alone are not sufficient. only credible and corroborated facts that provide us with some degree of certainly will guide our decision making. a senior administration official repeated that warning. the house and senate chairs were quick to defend the committee. senator di senator dianne feinstein, quote -- house chairman mike rogers. it is important that we read the intelligence as it is laid out, not as we would like it to be, but the memory of iraq which didn't exist and its role in the bush legacy hung over the pomp and circumstance in dallas even

though bush never mentioned the word iraq in his speech, he joked about not being able to make controversial decisions. >> people can disagree. fair to say i created plenty of opportunities to exercise ta right. >> but in the interview with matt lauer, bush said he's still willing to defend what he did in iraq and is not trying to rewrite history. >> the purpose here is not to defend or to argue or -- >> so, you're not being defensive here. >> not at all. l we're being factual. if somebody said to me you're never going to disclose weapons of mass destruction were found, heck, yeah. that's a fact and we also disclosed the fact that saddam hussein had the capacity to make weapons. >> bush was asked yesterday in a fox afternoon if regime change can still be used as a tool for

american foreign policy. >> regime change has taken place since iraq. egypt and tunisa and obviously there's a situation in syria and the question is not whether or not people will want to get rid of tyranny. the question is what do we do when they do? >> where does that leave president obama? in a bloomberg column, jeffrey goldberg said -- but he did so by reminding the president of a conversation goldberg had when the president was still a senator. quote, this is what then senator obama said to him. what i don't want to see happen is for iraq to become an excuse for us to ignore human relations or genocide. is the the public ready for this? politically, this is not going to be a popular decision. any sort of intervention. that was the issue with libya when it first tarted going. >> all right.

moving on. in the end though yesterday in dallas, it wasn't just about bush's legacy. it was about the bushes legacy and future of political dynasties. namely those with those ending in bush and clinton. that brings us to our friday round up of all things 2016. all week in a media flurry, the former president bush encouraged the idea of a future president bush, but the queen mom of the presidency, who is known to speak her mind, did it again and stole the day yesterday. >> mrs. bush, would you like to see your son, jeb, run? >> he's by far the best qualified man, but no. i really don't. i think it's a great country. there are a lot of great families and it's not just for families or whatever. they're just, there are other people out there that are very qualified and we've had enough bushes. >> by the way, jeb didn't

exactly jump at the idea of running in a speech in dallas on wednesday. >> care to make any comments about the race in 2016? >> um, am i getting this tie? >> no matter what your answer? -- >> well, to be honest with you, i'm focused on the land commissioner race in 2014. >> thank you so much. >> reference to george p. of course. if you listen carefully to what barbara bush said, she seemed to be advocating an end to all political dynasties. that could include the clintons. those two juggernauts crossed paths on wednesday where hillary clinton gave her first paid speech since leaving the obama administration. also this week, house republicans made it clear they're going to hang on hillary clinton in the lead up to 2016, releasing a report on benghazi, which mentioned clinton's name 30 times.

reductions of security levels prior to attacks were approved at the highest levels of the state department up to and including secretary clinton, this contradicts her own testimony before the senate foreign affairs committee. meanwhile, bill clinton got on twitter for real this time, tweeting this picture of the president's club yesterday. another new face on twitter. dr. joe biden. the white house retreated this picture sending her first tweet. may be campaigning for most aggressively, martin o'malley. he was in israel this week. over the past few cycles, stopping in israel is as important as a pancake breakfast. chris christie proved he still has a 2013 race to run was spotted in dallas at the bush library. kentucky senator rand paul faced a backlash from his people after comments on drones after craig

robinson tweeted this. i want 13 hours of my life back. how do you stand with rand when you don't know where rand stands. a left wing blog had manufactured the controversy quote, those who spread this around have not looked through the issue significantly. and marco rubio, who stars in a new tv ad is not the only one defendi ining himself on the is on the right. paul ryan is taking issue with luis gutierrez in chicago. >> i like them.e iing a record that makes it very, very hard in my view, if he chooses to run for president, to vote for. >> we shall see. here's our road to 1600 for the week. all right. developing now.

this is the federal prison in massachusetts. this is where boston marathon bombing suspect dzhokhar tsarnaev is is at this hour. he was moved there overnight from the hospital. coming up, we're going to go live to boston for the late e on the investigation. but up next, crossinging a red line. lawmakers are demanding action against syria, but what action is possible? plus, frustrated fliers. a potential deal to end the delays for travelers nationwide. why this is the one thing every senator can agree on. we know how washington works now. if they're inconvenienceinconve they'll fix the sequester. by the way, first ever sitting president is speaking to a planned parenthood meeting. that's president obama. and by the way, we just learned we can expect a house vote on that faa stick at 10:45 this morning. [ female announcer ] are you sensitive to dairy?

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that is to provide a safe area for the opposition to operate. to establish a no fly zone. and to pro vid weapons to the people in the resistance who we trust. >> senator mccain is just one of several lawmakers calling for action. they suggest that president bashar assad has used chemical weapons against syrian rebels,

but say more evidence is needed. steve, josh, i want to start with you. you've been reporting on this very aggressively before the administration confirmed some of this stuff. why do you believe there's been essentially the administration has been contradicting itself over the last 48 hours? >> what we know is that the intelligence assessment reaches contained various levels of confidence that there have been at least two instances of chemical use in syria. >> by the way, this has been going on for weeks, not days. >> one in the suburbs of aleppo, one in damascus. it took a while for the evidence to get out. wired magazine was the first to report, but i was able to confirm that the evidence consists of blood sam p principles that contained traces of the gas. white house has been quick to say they are not sure of the chain of custody. >> let's stop there with chain

of custody because we're hearing these buzz words and red line. steve, you and i were having this conversation of chain of custody. is this real skepticism by the obama administration that maybe assad didn't okay? or is this just an attempt to buy time? >> well, it could be both. it could be buy time. one of the things josh and i were discussing, the syrian government has, whether or not there was a strict chain of custody up to the command staff, they've lost control of those weapons. that's an important item to remember, but the second part is this issue about red lines and chemical weapons has been on the table for a long time and you've got to ask who had the most to gain by the minimalist use of this. and frankly, it's the syrian opposition. i'm not saying that's the case, but it's a legitimate question to ask. i imagine we have signals intelligence scrambling around and political leadership saying what the hell just happened

here, what happened and we're trying to process how much control there might have been about these incidents that josh reported on. so i think there's a legitimate issue that we need to sort out because you could begin assigning blame and retribution to the wrong element. >> you can't figure out assad's motivation. intervention that will have a lot of potential costs. >> now, josh, let's talk about the options on the table or at least ones we think the obama administration is dealing with. is considering. we've heard john mccain talk for a no fly zone and some arming of the rebels. >> the administration said they won't reveal what options they're considering. they'll consult with allies then figure it out later. it's based on patriot missile batteries that we have now. there's almost no chance nato will agree to use those for a no fly zone.

arm i arming the opposition has gone on right now. >> we claim that it's not. it's fact. it's happening. >> and the u.s. is helping and trying to aid that arming. so that's going on right now. the other options are simply to increase the pressure on the regime by giving things like intelligence, communication, military training to the opposition. a lot of that is also going on. in the end, the administration has not signalled it's going to go further in terms of intervention or arming the regime or helping the rebels. >> steve, this is what struck me yesterday. you had a lot of hawk chatter and understandable and you know, i think jeffrey goldberg, we get all that, but nobody seems to have an answer of what they think we should do. nobody wants the u.s. to act unilaterally. >> i think that goes. frankly, you got behind the scenes extraordinary cooperation between great britain, france, the united states and the israelis. >> important part about libya, look at what barack obama did in

libya. even with with skeptics like me, was very impressive. small footprint in and out and i think that to the degree that an intervention, remember, not convolute two things. talking about the broader options of dealing with the regime, an all end war that neutralizes the syrian regime. that is different than securing nuclear weapons. if they decide to go in, do what needs to be done to get in and out. secure chemical weapons so they don't fall into the hands of he has bla. >> it's a small goal. now, the hawks will try and ride that if they do go that way and say have mission creep and try to blow that mission. but i don't think this administration will do that. i think that the most legitimate and frankly the most appropriate right now in chemical weapons is not to mix these two objectives. >> king abdullah is going to be meeting with the president

today. we know he's got a problem on his hands. half a million syrians, half a million more are going to be coming over his border. what's he going to be asking of the president today? >> apparently, he's come to town with a plan for spurring forward the political transition. he wants to accelerate negotiations between the assad regime and rebels. there's not a lot of appetite for that within the assad regime or amongst the rebels. of course, this is the obama administration's plan to negotiate a solution between the two sides. that doesn't seem to be happening. that is the only reason because the only other alternative is to further exacerbate the war, so it really is a situation where there are two bad options here and right now, the obama administration seems to be choosing neither. >> three people i always want to hear from first on these issues. you're two of them. jeffrey goldberg is the third. i recommend to everybody, follow these two guys and my friend jeffrey goldberg particularly on this situation. thank you both. up next, we're live in boston. the developing news from the

investigation. the survivinging suspect is now in prison as we learn more about what happened during the long night of terror that ended in his arrest. but first, today's trivia question. how many sitting u.s. presidents have visited syria? first person to tweet the correct answer gets the on air shout out. [ male announcer ] citi is over 200 years old. in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones. but, through it all we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our history matter to you? because for more than two centuries, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. ♪ and the next great idea could be yours. ♪

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revealed that new york city was next on their list of targets. their plan however fell apart when they realized that the vehicle they hijacked was low on gas and ordered the driver to stop at a nearby gas station. the driver used the opportunity to escape and call the police. >> senior law enforcement officials say now say that the suspected boston marathon bombers discussed detonating their remaining explosives in

times square, but described the plan as quote undeveloped and aspirational at most. this comes as a u.s. marshal confirms that dzhokhar tsarnaev is now being held at the prison pfacility in massachusetts and his father is sick and is no longer planning to travel to the united states in the coming days. joining me now, michael isakoff. so they've transferred him. that means he's healthier, healthy enough to do that. what do we know about his condition? is he talking full time now? can he speak? >> well, his condition is fair and stable, but he was in pretty rough shape. in fact, we got a pretty detailed account yesterday of just how bad shape he was in. monday during that court

appearance, he was described as splotched face, swollen, bandages around his left hand. unable to speak. but also, lucid and coherent. the judge described him as lew cyd and cohent and when he was informed that the charges could lead to the death penalty, he then showed no reaction at all. his heart monitor didn't register a blip. all this accounts to investigators, fbi agents, before this. and fbi agents have been relying on this. so what we have is somebody who's clearly suffered multiple wounds, but physically has a lot of recovering to do. >> i know this is a, one of weird, talk about the sirens in t background there, throwing

things off. i want to ask you though about the issue of what authorities believe, how serious it seems the tsarnaev brothers are because frankly, how much of this was real? how much of it is hype? it does sound like certain people, certain news entities are trying to hype this. what do we know? what are the facts here? >> well, it's very hard to know exactly and frankly, if you look, go through the timeline, a lot of this doesn't make any sense. it certainly doesn't lay out a scenario of a well developed plot to come to new york. the last thing you would think two terrorists trying to blow up bombs in times square would do would start out by shooting a policeman in cambridge, especially when the fbi is already broadcast their photographs to the world. so, and then we also have this new account this morning in the boston globe from the victim of

that carjacking describing a harrowing zigzag drive through the boston area that don't seem to make any sense. the victim of the carjacking did say when tamerlan got in the car, he said i did that about the boston bombings and i just killed a policeman in cambridge. >> all right, michael isakoff in boston for us. thank you, sir. to our website for more on how to boston bombings are resognating in that massachusetts primary. including how one group is trying to use the tragedy to score political points. up next, we're taking a deep dive into dynasty politics and whether the internet age has made it easier to knock off front-runners. the humble back seat.

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you like that? deep dive music? deep diving into the curse of high expectations an a chance that a political underdog could be the big story. just yesterday, barbara bush was asked whether her son, jeb, should be the third bush to run for president. here's what she said. >> i think it's a great country. there are a lot of great families and it's not just for families or whatever. they're just, there are other people out there that are very qualified and we've had enough bushes. >> as you heard, she wasn't just talking about her family. sounded a lot like a reference to the clintons as well. the underlying message, even political dynasties aren't invincible. much of the buzz around hillary clinton has been whether she would run. steny hoyer put it quote, if she run, she clears the field. but is that really true?

james carville agrees with that assessment. >> i don't think there's ever been anybody that is a prohibitive front-runner for party's nomination as secretary state clinton is right now. >> but of course, not everyone believes it. howard dean's former tech guru says the idea hillary clinton is the inevitable nominee is quote stupid. we've seen this before. newspaper columnists were writing clinton appeared to be in a class all by herself. gallup found her nearly 30 points ahead of a guy named barack obama. times have changed, but maybe not for the better as far as clinton is concerned. assuming she's the democratic nominee, she would be the front-runner, but being the front-runner or establishment pick isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

in fact, it may hurt you more than it helps. 2012 saw another giant step forward in the role technology plays. social media means they can get their message out without having to pay for ads and could provide a significant woos to any democratic challenger. joining me now, nick, social media expert. known him a long time. back when he served as internet operations director for howard dean. author of a new book called the end of big, how the internet makes david the new goliath and your book applies to more than just politics. we want to focus on politics here. you've been the lone guy it seems like sayinging hillary clinton's not inevitable. did i sum your argument up fairly? >> you did. good morning, todd, it's great to be here and absolutely. you know, the internet really empowers insurgents and makes it

easy to run against the establishment. so, the point is does this mean this should encourage an insurgent, one of the things about 2012 and watching it, to me, your theory played out with with romney. romney was the inevitable front-runner the whole time, but we knew there would be a challenger, we just never knew who it was. there was a new insurgent about every month and finally, it became rick santorum. the point was there was always room for someone else. >> not only was there room for somebody else, there was a lot of energy and it just never really coalesced around a single candidate. given the right field, it will happen. and there's nothing an establishment or front-runner can do about it. >> let me stop you there. double that though? you're the clinton campaign right now. somebody who wants to see

hillary clinton run. can you do something about this? if you get all of the bright minds that put together the technology behind obama's two presidential runs, can you blunt this impact as a front-runner? >> you can try, but at the end of the day, one of the reasons obama was successful online is that people, when they give obama a hundred bucks, they believed he needed it. that if he was going to deher in '07, he needed people's time and money. your contribution really matter mattered. nobody's going to believe that about hillary clinton. that's not something a front-runner can't pose as an unknown, as a cinderella story. it doesn't happen and the internet loves to be a king maker. >> now one of the things you seem to suggest is that there is a way for her to present herself as an underdog, which is basically don't emphasize the

clinton. emphasize the hillary. that there's a bunch of men trying to stop the first woman president, she can capture the mentality. >> not just a bunch of men, but if it's a bunch of relatively establishment men out of d.c., running as a woman helps to create an underdog sensibility about it. there's certainly an appeal there to many of the hillary's long time fan, especially women around this country, that it's time to have a first woman president. but she would have to fully inhabit that and really, really capture herself in an underdog wand even then, it's going to be really hard to believe that hillary's an underdog. >> how does this apply? explain how the end of big applies if you are running a big corporation. >> well, the whole idea the end of big, our technology

redistributes power. pushes power out of institutions, out of hierchies and diffuses it really broadly. i have a 3-d printer and i printed this case for my iphone. i print shoes for my boys. it's entirely possible that my boys will never go to a shoe store and buy a brand name pair of shoes. that they'll just print them on their 3-d printer. across the board, our technology is pushing power out of institutions and one of the most interesting ways it's doing it is inside of our two big political parties, which you can see now, very active with the tea party. >> we see it there. it's good to see you. been a while. congratulations on the book and again, it's an important read for folks trying to understand the power of social media. thank you. >> thank you. it seems a rare moment of agreement could be upon us in washington. the gaggle will be here next and a programming note for you this sunday on "meet the press."

includes some interviews. senator john mccain, tony blair will be on with david gregory, but first, white house soup of the day. a friday favorite. seafood gum bow. we'll be right back. for house member, hopefully, we'll learn something from it because as we know, congress is filled with a bunch of leakers. i'm half teasing. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] this is george. the day building a play set begins with a surprise twinge of back pain... and a choice. take up to 4 advil in a day or 2 aleve for all day relief. [ male announcer ] that's handy. ♪

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that's not much, you think. except it's 2% every year. go to e-trade and find out how much our advice and guidance costs. spoiler alert: it's low. it's guidance on your terms, not ours. e-trade. less for us. more for you. it's been a week since the faa starting furloughing thousand of important people across the country, so the senate found a temporary fiction to the cuts that will give the faa the ability to spend money to keep employees on the job and the house is expected to vote on it in the next hour. this comes as members of congress are scrambling to catch

their own flights. from the center for american process, danielle, liz of the ap and republican ad maker, brad todd. am i being overly cynical? brad, you like to beat me up. am i being overly cynical about watching the senate act in its own self-interest on sequester? >> predicted there would be 6,000 cancellations a day and there were 900 on tuesday. this terrible faa problem is one sixth they predicteded. >> twice in the last two day, my flights were not delayed. >> there's an inherent dishonesty the administration has taken to this process. to let the secretary use discretion to move existing money. >> the sequester policy, this is to go to the straight up political, the president was hoping to insert here. didn't work. >> no, but i think what you're seeing now is you know,

sequester happened. nobody thought it was going to happen. the lawmakers put it in place. didn't think that we would be this, get to this point where these cuts are now taking place, so what you got now u are temporary fixing. they're going to tweak it. they're never going to change the whole system, but tweak it here and there and i think we're going to continue to see that. >> there are many people on the left who say they'll only tweak it if it smacks them in the face personally. >> right. exactly. it's culoridi. i think there are people across this country struggling right now, head start, cancer patients who aren't getting treatment. people who are losing their jobs who wish they had money to take a flight and be delayed somewhere. the fact they're doing this piecemeal stuff is just redi

ridiculous and they need to fix it. >> a sequester, this is going to happen, you couldn't fix it, so maximum flexibility. so you know what the money is that you can spend. why don't we just have maximum flexibility for every department? >> i think that would be a good idea, but congress, congress shoulders a lot of this blame as well. it's not just all on the administration. >> the president said i will not veto those automatic cuts when the super committee finished its work. he warned congress these things would take place. congressman called his bluff and if the president would like to send to capitol hill give me flexibility, i guarantee you it would make it through both houses. >> i don't think it would. >> eboas their own little -- >> yeah, they're looking in their own backyard and this is typical of what we see with congress. it's not a congress looking at the bigger picture. they're looking at their

political interests. >> why isn't the president using the bully pulpit to ask for that instead of a tax increase. >> but at the same time, if you're in the middle of trying to negotiate a larger budget deal. >> the way to run the government in a best way would be to ask congress helping him run the government. >> no, they're thot. >> he's not asking for help to run the government. he's asking for more money for the american taxpayer. >> i would disagree and say they share equal blame. >> by the way, the rest of the republican, you guy, whatever. when we come back, we're going to talk a little politics. how many sitting u.s. presidents have visited syria? we surprised a lot of people. it's two, but it's not the two many of you would have guessed. according to the state department's records, bill clinton and richard nixon are the only two to visit syria. as president, both met with president assad, the father of the current syrian president.

i have to say, i would have guessed carter and bush. and congratulations to today's winner. richard skinner. got a political trivia question for u e-mail us. we'll be right back. dailyrundown@mdailyrundown dailyrundown@msnbc.com. we'll be right back. clients are always learning more to make their money do more. (ann) to help me plan my next move, i take scottrade's free, in-branch seminars... plus, their live webinars. i use daily market commentary to improve my strategy. and my local scottrade office guides my learning every step of the way. because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) scottrade... ranked "highest in customer loyalty for brokerage

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let's bring back the gaggle, daniella gibbs leger, liz sidoti, brad todd. the story we haven't covered is the daily disintegration of mark sanford's career. he's debating cardboard cutouts, but not of his opponent, but of nancy pelosi. meanwhile, he's -- new stories about what was he doing, trespassing on his ex-wife's yard. >> i think that's really when you started to see the trickle, trickle come out on just all this stuff.

and total damage control moment for him. i mean, what he didn't -- he spent the entire campaign trying to put his past behind him and saying that, you know, my mistakes and all were over and i've grown and this kind of stuff. so the news of the trespassing allegations, i think, really caused him to free fall. >> brad, is there any regret among house republicans that they didn't actively find somebody else to stop? >> this is a district that mitt romney won by 18 points. and he won the state of south carolina by ten points. it's a republican district. and republican voters decide who their nominees are. and south carolina republicans were going to pick this nominee, no matter what. he's the nominee -- >> so you don't think there's anything the national party could have done to realize they had a nightmare on their hands? >> the national party trying to rig a local election is one of the most impossible things you can do. >> well, we just had a whole segment about that. it's fair enough.

so elizabeth cullbert bush, you know, very methodically ran this campaign. and yet you talk to democrats and they sit there and say, you know, we still only have a 50/50 chance of winning. >> it's because romney won it by 18 points in a very republican district. the fact that it's even even right now is amazing and goes to show how much sanford has fallen. she's playing it smart and keeping her head down. >> this feels like scott brown, martha coakley, it's a unique situation, one time, one period they win, then reality sits in, a real republican candidate will come in and she'll lose. hey, you do work for rick scott. rather run against charlie chris or bill nelson. >> i think for the heart and soul -- >> your shameless plug. liz sidoti? >> my dad, running for city council in kent, ohio, in the primary may 7th. >> wow. >> folks should go out and vote my for my dad. >> that is shameless! always vote for dad. >> a great plug for my colleagues. you guys are doing great work.

>> there's a reason i was plugging a little bit on bill nelson, he'll be on with my friend, chris jansing, in the next hour. check back after the show. we'll detail some of the stranger twists and turns of that mark sanford campaign. it has been a wild week. that's it for edition. have a great weekend. bye-bye. i'm meteorologist bill karins with your spring weekend forecast. there's two things going on this weekend. one is warmer temperatures, just about everywhere. the other one is some heavy rains and today they're in areas of oklahoma and arkansas. they'll be spreading is overnight tonight into the weekend into areas of tennessee, kentucky, and through the southeast. if there's one rainy spot this weekend, it's having to deal with on and off rain, it's the southeast. the rest of the country, enjoy.

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good morning. i'm chris jansing. well, the house is expected to vote this hour to stop those furloughs of air traffic controllers and hopefully put an end to a travel nightmare. let's face it, it's hard to get unanimous approval on anything in congress, but it did happen in the senate last night. every single member voted to deal with the air travel portion of the sequester, right as they were leaving town. >> i'm delighted that the senate has just passed a bipartisan

bill to resolve a serious problem confronting the american traveling bl and our economy. >> thousands of flights were delayed this week because of the sequester and angry passengers and voters were vocal. pilots, even, blaming government officials over airline pa systems. now, the bill essentially moves money around, shifting $253 million from other parts of the department of transportation budget to the faa. i want to bring in "washington post" columnist dana milbank and the "national journal's" editorial director, ron fournier. good morning, gentleman. >> good morning. >> so i guess good news if you're getting on a plane, dana, like many members of congress are. air traffic controllers, i expect, if this goes through the house, will be back on the job by next week. but is this just another short-term washington fix for a much bigger problem? >> well, chris, i have mixed feelings about this, as somebody who's going to fly out of town this weekend. this is very good news. but as somebody who's watching the wayic