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mitchell reports," new details on the naval yard shooter. what does this recent information reveal about his mental state before the rampage and what warning signs were not sent up the chain of commands. shutdown showdown, speaker john boehner faces a lose lose situation tying defunding federal care act to budget negotiations. if they are playing with fire on the hill, who is going to put it out? >> this is playing with fire. legislative arsonists are at work when they start using the debt limit for their own agenda. >> let me be very clear. republicans have no interest defaulting on our debt. none. we just want to find a way to pay it off. >> camelot's next chapter, senate ambassador to japan caroline kennedy said she would be humbled to carry forward her father's legacy. >> this appointment has a

special significance as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of my father's presidency. >> good day, i'm chris matthews in new york, in for andrea mitchell. the political back and forth over the budget and debt limit are dominating the conversation down in washington today. this morning we heard tough talk from democratic leader nancy pelosi and house speaker john boehner. >> the white house may not get it but frankly the american people get it. every major deficit reduction plan over the past 30 years has been tied to the debt limit. >> not lifting the debt limit is unleashing a torrent, a river of no return, beyond cataclysmic.

>> served as senior adviser to president obama during his first presidential term. david, a question of hunch here trying to figure out, first of all, do you believe the president will stand firm here on affordable health care, his landmark achievement. >> i have no doubt about it. he believes this is an important thing to do not just now but for future generations. he expended a lot of political currency to get it done for that reason and he's not going to turn back now. i'm very, very certain of that. >> what do you make of the people on the right. not the republican party generally but the right of the party basically setting as their standard of toughness, almost if you're not for defunding obama care during the talks over the deficit and the debt, then you're some skind of rhino. hasn't it moved the mark over to the right as to who is a true blue republican? >> there's no question about it. watching boehner is like watching a hostage drama to see him deal with his caucus.

he understands how ill conceived this whole notion is but the right wingers in his caucus took control and he bowed to their wishes. the question is he knows what's going to happen. they are going to send this over to the senate, the senate is going to reject it. the senate is going to send something back without the offending provisions and then the question is what will he do. if he puts it on the house floor it will pass but may not pass with a majority of republicans. is he willing to do that. that could risk his speakership. >> in other words, put on the floor a continuing resolution which will fund the government but will continue the affordable care act. you believe that will get some republicans. you do believe it will get a lot of democrats. you believe that? >> i do. on so many of these matters, immigration reform, not that there's not a majority in the

house that would support moving forward, is that they don't have a majority of the republicans. boehner is wedded to this notion, has been on most things, not all things, that he has to have a majority of republicans. that is in this case a suicidal impulse. but each way he turns he faces danger. so it's a very tough situation. it gets tougher when you start approaching the debt limit, because there are people on that side that seem intent on allowing the united states to default on its debts in order to score political points with their constituents in the republican party back home. and the impact of that, chris, as you know would be global and would be negative and would hurt every family and business in this country. >> i was thinking it takes 217 to get a house majority. he's going to have to get a lot of republicans to come for the clean cr, the clean bill to continue funding the government without any defunding of the affordable health care act and

have to get some democrats to join. i guess the question is can he get a majority of republicans in his caucus to say, yes, lets go ahead even if we can't defund health care. that's the critical question. >> right. that i the critical question and no one really knows the answer. but he's had bad luck lately trying to rally his caucus behind any kind of half commonsensical sorts of approaches. it's a very, very tough situation. if he does the right thing, it could cost him his speakership. if he doesn't do the right thing, it could cost every american dearly. >> you think that's a problem? i worked in the business of politics people like tip o'neill and president reagan, by their own visceral reality they spoke for their party. obama isn't exactly one of the boys but he is pretty much a centrist democrat. boehner doesn't seem to be in sync with the new republican

party. he can't viscerally be those guys in the back seats. that seems to be the problem here. if he says i think this deal sounds good, smells good, should be good, that's not the same judgment of the guys in the south and southwest that will say no way. >> well, in fact, i think there's such distrust of him within that caucus among some of those tea party republicans that if he endorses it, it may make it harder at points to rally them behind the legislation. no, they have got a bitterly divided party and the country is paying a price for it. >> lets talk about a challenge of facts. i was with carl burnstein, the great reporter. the difference compared today to 20, 30 years ago, there used to be an agreement on facts. the president of the united states, treasury secretary said we're approaching a cliff here. if we don't raise the debt ceiling, we've got real problems in terms of default. we had a congressman last night

on "hardball" that said that's not true, we're not facing default. i'm going to ask you, president of communication, could are there come a time he'll say let me explain this to you. this isn't a partisan estimate. we're going to run out of money and have a default situation. how do you convince american people left, right, center of the facts? >> yeah. well, i mean, it's a problem. i'm not sure there's a body of voters out there and many of them are concentrated in the districts of these legislators who are so recalcitrant on this issue who honestly don't -- they so distrust government they don't accept any fact on the face of it. but i was interested this morning in karl rove's piece in the "wall street journal" where he outlined what the implications of a government shutdown would be for the military, people across this country and said, quite rightly, that it would be very profound. i do think the american people

understand that a shutdown would be bad. i know they understand that the united states of america not standing behind its debt, not paying its bills would be bad. i think the republicans are walking themselves right off a cliff. the problem is they are walking the country off the cliff with them. >> what did you think of the poll in the "washington post," maybe you didn't see it. republicans say go ahead, push this thing on the debt ceiling, don't go along with raising of the debt ceiling. also said in a second set, they do think it's going to cause an economic calamity. i know things like syria, hard to put your mind together about two questions. i was struck with the fact republican respondents to the poll were willing to say don't raise the debt ceiling. if you don't raise the debt ceiling an economic calamity. they are saying let the chips fall where they may. astounding. >> a really frightening thing. one thing interesting about this discussion, if you ask people do you think we should raise the debt ceiling, the majority of people will say no.

if you ask people do you think we should pay our debts and stand by our debts and not default on our debt, an even larger number of people say, no, we shouldn't do that. we certainly should pay our debt. in part it's how you define the question. i think people want the government to act responsibly. on the one hand they think raising the debt ceiling is not responsible. they also know it's irresponsible to default on your debt. there's a lot of confusion out there about what's at stake. what's at stake, if we don't pay our bills we crash the economy, not just here but across the globe. that is a disaster. some republicans may be comfortable with that. i don't think most americans are, most independent voters aren't, boehner, they know that. they are trying to find some way to get control of their troops there. >> as a paperboy, i remember when i was a paperboy, boy scout, we were encouraged as young kids, make any money, buy savings bonds. that's as solid an investment as

you can make. there's no problem. the government of the united states stands behind it. remember that? now we're talking about defaulting on no, sir savings bonds. it's horrible. you're a great asset. thank you, nbc news analyst david axelrod. ann curry was the first to interview the president rouhani, censorship of citizens and nuclear weapons. >> mr. president, these are israeli prime minister netanyahu's words, not mine. he has said about you, his strategy is to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. smile and build a bond. can you say now categorically that iran will not build a nuclear weapon under any circumstances whatsoever. >> translator: first an occupier and usurper government that does injustice to people of the region and has brought instability to the region with

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with the memory of her father john f. kennedy in mind caroline kennedy pledged to strengthen u.s. japanese relations if she is confirmed as ambassador to japan. >> this appointment has a special significance as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of my father's presidency. i'm conscious of my responsibility to uphole the ideals that he represented. a deep commitment to public service and more just america and a more peaceful world. as a world war ii veteran who

served in the pacific, he hoped to be the first sitting president to make a state visit to japan. if confirmed as ambassador i'll be humbled to carry forward his legacy in a small way. >> joining me now for the daily fix kelly o'donnell and chris cillizza, msnbc contributor and co-host of post tv in play. kelly, this the next level. i think it's a strange appointment. i don't know why she didn't get london or ireland or france or someplace nearby but she's going over there to fill the shoes of walter mondale, and it's a pretty prestigious post herself. >> her grandfather ambassador to court of st. james. >> notoriously, by the way. >> a lot of history there. this is really in some ways the reluctant candidate. while she's been a public figure her entire life has done most of her public policy work through writing, through the library foundation. this is her stepping forward

now. her three children are essentially grown. she is really taking the mantle in a new way. this is the kind of post where she'll be enormously visible in japan, will have influence in that part of the world but will not be subjected to some of the intensity that would have followed her, remember that flirting with the senate seat some years back, introduced by chuck schumer and kirsten gillibrand whoventionly got the seat caroline kennedy expressed some interest in. there's been a gap in time. that was not an easy step on the stage with her. president obama, that put her family back in the spotlight, those links to history and her own background in a scholarly way, a public service way but mostly quiet way until taking on this position now assuming she is confirmed. it's a new chapter in the life of the kennedy family and her cousin is, of course, a member

of the house. joe kennedy iii, grandson of rfk. the kennedys left federal service for a period of time. she had been someone we would see in the hallways when she was visiting her late uncle senator edward kennedy. she knows her way around washington and certainly the complex. today you could see she is not the most comfortable in the spotlight in this way but she's really emerging in a role you point out is maybe not the one the public would expect but one that will put her in that national and international glow that she sort of has had all her life. >> kelly, i know you hate these questions, but i think it's not that hard. you think anybody will be a wet blanket and vote against her recommendation? >> i don't think there's anything in the record that would suggest she's not worthy of the position. we do find, it doesn't get recorded a lot, but we're here when nominations go forward. it is not uncommon for there to be a unanimous vote for a

noncontroversial nominee. so i've not heard any resistance to her role in this way. so in many ways it's a good step for her to begin this level of public service in a way that might not draw the controversy had she been a senator herself. >> you know, chris, it's amazing, chris cillizza, that she has been in the public spotlight for more than a century going back to the late '50s. we all know about caroline kennedy, there she is in that wonderful picture with her brother john dancing and having fun before the president in the oval office. you talk about a spotlight. is there anything we don't know about caroline kennedy even for the committees to waste their time looking for it. you know what i mean? >> i wonder, chris, i read recountings of the senate foreign relations hearing. it certainly -- i won't even say objections, any issues raised, it was really about the u.s.'s role in the region, not caroline

kennedy. you look, nominations can go a lot of different ways. i would say judging from that treatment, it seems very unlikely to me. i think the most fascinating thing, i'm obviously a campaign guy and i do remember when she stepped forward when hillary clinton took the isn't of state job. she stepped forward and said i would like the then governor to appoint me. it seemed an odd fit at the time. she's always been someone reluctant to go in the public eye. she has admitted she's shy. that campaign did not go well. she eventually wound up taking herself out of it. this seems to me while it is public, this is maybe a better fit for what we know about her as a person and her persona. >> i think her formality and distance will fit well with the japanese culture, just to guess. i see you shaking your head positive. she's not a back slapper, no are should she be.

>> she's more her mother than her father in that respect. >> very much a good mother, too, i think. hold on there, new disturbing details about the navy yard shooter. while investigators dig into alexis' past including mental health problems we're learning more about his mental state during monday's attack from the phrases carved into his weapon. nbc justice correspondent pete williams joins us now from fbi headquarters where he's just met with the new director. pete. >> right, chris. we've gotten a revised account of how the shooting happened with many new details in it. let me just walk through the way the new fbi director has described what happened on monday. he said aaron alexis drove into the washington navy yard around 8:00 that morning, parked his car, used his badge to go inside. went up to the fourth floor carrying a black bag, came out without the bag and the shotgun and started firing shots a few minutes after 8:00.

the people he shot initially were on the third and fourth floors of the building. he said he shot people with no particular pattern. he seemed to be hunting for victims is the way he put it, that the people who were shot showed no pattern. he wasn't going after specific people. they were working in various parts of the building. they had different kinds of jobs. he hasn't found anyone was targeted. he said nothing, alexis, according to fbi, he said nothing during the shooting. there's no evidence, this was an impression during the last few days, no evidence he looked over the balcony and shot down into the atrium. he said there's no evidence he did that. he was engaging people in hallways. victims were found shot in hallways and in offices. he used the shotgun he bought on saturday, but told us the women had been cut down. both the barrel had been shot off and the stock had been shot

off. we don't know if he was carrying it into the building in the bag or had it hidden on his person. in any event, it was a modified weapon. after he ran out of shotgun shells, alexis began shooting with a handgun he had taken from a guard on the first floor he shot with the shotgun. he kept the shotgun shells in pockets in cargo pants he was wearing. it was about a half hour after the shooting began. the shooting begins a little after 8:00. somewhere around 8:30, he says, is when alexis was first encountered by the first responder teams. they engaged him several times, ultimately pinned him down in a section of the building. during that time alexis wasn't able to fire his weapon and hurt anyone, but it took a little longer than that before he was finally subdued and killed. he says there's no indication of

friendly fire, meaning no indication of the dead or wounded hit by law enforcement, that they were wounded or hit only by alexis. he did clear up one confusing thing, one of the victims found outside the building. comey says he was shot in an alley way but the round came through a door. there's no indication alexis fired any shots outside the building, even though one of the victims was hurt outside the building. chris, let me say one more thing. we were interested to hear details. i think mr. comey was as curious to tell about the subject, sequestration affect on the fbi. he says he finds this surprising. it makes no sense. he's not only going to in the coming budget have to cut 3,000 jobs from the fbi but have to furlough every single fbi

employee, all 36,000 of them for up to 10 days. he says this is going to have a huge impact on his workforce. he's, i think, frankly hoping if he talks about this enough and indicates what a blow this will be to the fbi and its ability to do the mission, maybe he can get some relief from congress. that's his wish, something that's been shocking to him since he came to the fbi to learn about this, chris. >> what do you make of these cultural tidbits on alexis, he can speak the thai language, he's a buddhist, put together a website called mohammed salem. what do you think about his website, who he is. >> the name he registered, first of all, that was eight years ago he did that, we're told. secondly, he never used it. he never did anything with it. they aren't exactly sure twa it was all about.

it's an outlier in a picture they are developed of him. no interest in jihad. comey said no connection to terrorism. everything mr. comey said and everything we've heard is consistent with a view that this was a mentally disturbed person that came to this building and began shooting with no real what one would call in a conventional sense, no real motive. no score to settle. he doesn't appear to be targeted anybody. they don't find any indication he was upset about anything that happened there. he had been working in building 197. he was updating servers, computer servers is the way he put it, so he had free access to many level of the building. he had a legitimate pass to get in. he had been working there. he was familiar with it, which is why he was able to go inside and choose to start shooting quickly. >> why didn't he learn a language, the thai language. what's that about? was he trained to do something in the electronics in the

military? that's what jumped at me the first day this happened. how do you learn an asian language? >> it had nothing to do with military training. it was something he was interested in. he visited thailand last year. he became somebody who was very interested in buddhism. he spent a lot of time at a buddhist temple in ft. worth, texas. his friends were other thais. we don't know how he developed that interest in the thai culture, the thai language. you're right. there's no indication, by the way, that had anything to do -- this seemed to be just something -- his parents say he had anger management issues as early as 2001. we see this with his run-ins with police where he's firing his reply or breaking up furniture at a nightclub. then ultimately within the past month or so he tells police and others that he's hearing voices and thinks people are following him. >> tragic case. thank you so much, pete williams, nbc justice

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cleanup efforts in full force as coloradoans trying to put their communities back together. joining me, nbc's reporter.

we have people stranded. what's the situation today? >> first of all, we're now hearing vice president biden is going to be coming here to colorado on monday. he will have plenty of damage to survey, as you mentioned, chris. the good news, positive news, number of unaccounted for, missing continues to drop. earlier this week the number was over 1,000. now the state telling us it's exactly 201. only four of those people are in boulder county. the vast majority, 197 are still in larimore county. the search efforts do continue for those people as crews go in by air and on the ground reaching areas very hard to access where it's assumed there's no power and no way to communicate. they are still finding people. we can tell you just a couple days ago in larimore county there were more than 100 people rescued. we do know there are people out there who needs to be rescued. many while this morning and

today, one town that's making headlines is evans, colorado. a lot of damage to homes there. in fact, inspectors are going home to home, putting tags on homes based on whether they are safe to return to. a green tag means okay, yellow means use caution, orange means do not enter. we can tell you so far all but eight homes, chris, have received orange tags. a lot of devastation in the town of evans. >> joe fryer, reporting for nbc in colorado. in mexico, people have died there as powerful storms continue to pound both mexican coasts. hurricane manuel and tropical storm ingrid left a path of question instruction stranding thousands of people, cut off, some of the worst damage in decades. acapulco, beach property turned into swamp land. thousands of tourists finally getting a chance to go home. two airlines started flying out

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top democrats vowed today to kill any bill that would defund obama care, something that divided republican party in congress is using, of course a threat for the government shutdown less than two weeks away, this as speaker boehner sharply criticized the president for not negotiating with congress. >> so while the president is happy to negotiate with vladimir putin he won't engage with congress on a plan that deals with the deficits that threaten our economy. let me be clear here. a debt increase without any reforms to lower our deficit just isn't going to cut it.

>> head of the congressional campaign committee joins us now. congressman, do you think boehner is proffering a deal, we're not going to defund obama care but i need to take some red meat back to right wing guys in the caucus. what is he talking about cuts when all i've been hearing for days is defund obama care. >> john boehner is living in a right wing fantasy land. the problem is that instead of offering krubtive ideas constru move the party forward he continues to go with the caucus. he's concerned about keeping his gavel. give us ytds. he talks about defunding obama care and shutting down the government. quit catering to your base and start worrying about the economy. >> how many times to cater. he's going with a bill for

affordable care act. that comes back clean. does he do it again? keep doing it again, weeks from now? what do you think? will he keep doing this? >> chris, every time he's had the opportunity to compromise, choose solutions to move the country ahead, the economy head, cave into the base, he's chosen b this is not a speaker that showed us ability to compromise, advance common sense solutions for the nation's problems. any time we've gotten anything done in this congress, hurricane sandy relief aid or fiscal cliff, it's required democrats to get it done. this the least productive congress in history. anything of substance we have done has only been done because democrats were willing to put solutions first. >> let me give you worst scenario, maybe you saw it, nbc "washington post" poll, showed republicans saying we're not going to raise debt ceiling. republicans believe not raising debt ceiling will cause an

economic crisis in this country. how can people say they want something done that's going to cause real damage to the economy? is that the underfooting of members of congress from republican districts that the people back home don't care if we bring down the economy. it's scary when we see a poll number like that. >> you're exactly right. look, i would have more hope if republicans were taking positions out of political calculation. they are not, god bless them. they really believe this stuff. they believe we should shut down the government. i'll tell you, "the wall street journal" and u.s. chamber of commerce, not exactly from the liberal side of the political spectrum have both told republicans to give it up, quit this, move the economy forward and learn how to compromise and don't violate obligations and destroy full faith and credit of the united states government. when "the wall street journal" and u.s. chamber of commerce tells republicans to get their act together, they should get their act together. >> the chamber of commerce, u.s. chamber of commerce, that's not your local chamber of commerce back home.

lets clarify that for once. that's a big lobbying organization that supports big industry. anyway, just tell us, narrate this story henceforth now congressman. what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks in terms of government shutting down, possible default on the national debt, economic chaos, dow jones dropping, 401(k) shrinking. how far are we going to go into this midnight until somebody from the right blows a whistle and says enough. >> the problem with washington, the polarization is not about democrats versus republicans, it's about republicans verse republicans. until one side or the other wins that civil war in the republican caucus, you will continue to see what you've seen. chaos, confusion, crisis, slowdowns, shutdowns, being willing to harm the economy in order to advance a specific political right wing ideology. so one side or the other has to win the civil war in the republican party or democrats have to take back the majority in congress in 2014 and that's

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now that's progressive. call or click today. this week's mass shooting at the navy yard at the beginning of the week politicians from both sides of the aisle have called for increased oversight from the government on how background checks are conducted and security clearance given out to contract employees for the federal government. senator claire mccaskill chairman of the senate panel on contracting oversight and she's one asking the question. she joins us now. senator, thank you. it's so great you're doing this. tell us what you've learned about the inadequacy that would allow someone of this mental state to get a badge, get inside with a gun, do what he did. >> well, the irony is that over a year ago, chris, we got a whistleblower tip that the background checks for contractors at navy facilities was badly flawed.

we turned it over to dodig. believe it or not that report, preliminary report was given to us the day of the shooting. it showed the contractor that had been used to process background checks had frankly just not done the job. in many instances they were giving people access without doing the checks. they were felons that got access to these facilities. this is part of an overall problem of contracting in the federal government we've been working on over six years. you can't just hire contractors and think everything is going to be okay. you've got to really pay attention on how they are doing the job. you can't ask them to do a job for less money and less time than it requires. >> i worked for the government for a few years at the white house, political appointee as a speechwriter. we had background checks from the fbi. for people with blue-collar

jobs, did they have something like that? what kind of background when they work for contractor and go onto a naval base. >> that's part of the problem. who should get a full background check like edward snowden, or fbi agents or federal judges. who should get the kind of background check that exposed perhaps the problems this shooter had and get a handle on them. then we have to be realistic. if you do a good background check, you can't do it with a google search. we can't expect thousands to move through the system with very little money. this is kind of wink wink nod nod nod, lets see how quick we can do these. >> what is a yellow flag and red flag. you don't want to be guilty of

never hiring someone guilty of a speeding charge or even marijuana. how do you draw the lines, this is okay, this is not okay. how does the government do that? >> that's one of the things we want to get in the weeds on. what does cause a yellow flag, red flag. when is there an appeal? how does the appeal work? for somebody getting classified information, it needs to be pretty thorough. and lets be honest here, if a police department knows it's a federal contractor working with the military and they find out that he's hearing voices and thinks people are doing vibrations on his body, there needs to be a mechanism in place they can quickly and seamlessly convey that to the military so that access can be revoked until they take a look at it. >> i'm curious about him setting up a website mohammed salem and he's buddhist, why not mohammed

salem unless there's a political aspect to it. i don't know. i would follow that lead. claire mccaskill, thanks for joining us he just died at the age of 70 after suffering complications from a series of strokes. he's best known for his epic bouts with mohammuhammad ali. lost the rubber match. fought joe frazier. what a career in the big ring. anyway, in all norton's first showdown in the ring, considered the underdog. in the course of a 12-round bout with ali, broke with jaw and won the fight. ali never let him win again. won the next fight and the rubber match. beating muhammad ali was something. in every case he came back against frazier, against norton, later against leon spinks as had

it in the ring with trevor burdick. the time to walk away from the ring. the greatest champion we've ever had.

you fear he won't mind? >> really doesn't care about anything. >> must be exhausting. >> wow. which political story will make news in the next 24 hours? back with us, chris. your thoughts about that clip? >> well, here's my thought, chris. i wrote about this today. basically, "the washington post" did a poll. fascinating results. 59% of people do not want to raise the debt ceiling. 59% don't want to, also believe not raising the debt ceiling would do serious harm to the country's economy. i played this clip, a nihilistic streak out there, among -- it's largely among republicans but some independents in there, too,

who believe that the only way to have the country seriously address the debt and deficit problems it has is for us to have a serious self-inflicted crisis. it's sort of a remarkable window, i think, into how some people think about this coming fight over raising the debt ceiling. >> these people that don't have 401(k)s, don't invest in the stock market, they're not looking for a job, because we've seen the last time they threatened default on the debt, just threatened it, a 1,760 point drop in the dow. just threatening it. >> i write in the piece, i think the theory is, this is short term paying for long-term gain but always a danger when you go into unpredictability it spirals out of control. >> the polls are scary. thanks. that does it for this ed is of "andrea mitchell reports." andrea's back in the chair tomorrow. see you tomorrow at 7:00 eastern on "hardball." tamron hall with a look at what's next on "news nation." >> our next hour, republican

senator ted cruz will do whatever it takes to defund obamacare including a filibuster. right now his fight is with house republican members of his own party who accuse him of caving on the obamacare issue, and being more talk than action. plus, developing news. in just a few hour, the house is expected to vote on a republican bill that would cut food stamps to millions of struggling americans. a live report from capitol hill. and will smith's son jaden causing controversy with tweets about dropping out of school. critics say it sends a dangerous message, but why is rush limbaugh now a fan, dare we say, of jaden? [ male announcer ] 1.21 gigawatts. today, that's easy. ge is revolutionizing power. supercharging turbines with advanced hardware and innovative software. using data predictively to help power entire cities.

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and linked it to his bank of america bank account to help free up plenty of time for the here and now. that's the wonder of streamlined connections. that's merrill edge and bank of america. right now in "news nation" crews not in control. house republicans outraged as

senator ted cruz calls for them to stand up to the white house over obamacare. house speaker john boehner telling republican senators the past few hours to, "pick up the mantel." in a bold, new interview, pope francis says the catholic church is obsessed with abostian, contraception and gay marriage. he says the church needs to refocus. we'll look at this. plus a former nfl player finds out via twitter that his home is trashed by teenagers. now he says angry parents are threatening him for calling those kids out, online. i'm tamron hall. the "news nation" is following the house vote in the next few hours on a republican-led bill cutting food stamps to millions of struggling american es. the proposal would leave an estimated 3.8 million people without assistance next year. another 850,000 will see a reduction in benefits. that is according to the independent congressional budget office.