if you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution that's right for you. with easy step-by-step guidance, we're here to help you turn your dream into a reality. start your business today with legalzoom. good afternoon. i'm karen finney. we have breaking news this hour. 28-year-old sergeant beau bergdahl has been released by the taliban after nearly five years in captivity. he's just arrived for medical treatment. we're told he's in good health and able to walk having been recovered by u.s. special forests in eastern afghanistan along the border in exchange for four detainees. a defense official says he

wrote, sf? to ask if he was among u.s. special forces troops. the operators replied to him, yes, we have been looking for you for a long time. at which point the young man broke down in tears. president obama announced the release this afternoon following the call to his parents saying in a statement sergeant bergdahl's recovery is a reminder of a commitment to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield. both president obama and secretary of defense hagel praised qatar for aassisting in the release. kristen welker joins me now. we're starting to get some details about the nature of the negotiations, which only restarted just a little while ago. >> that's right. they have been going on in theory for a couple of years. but they started up a couple weeks ago. you're right about that. let me read you the latest i have from a senior official who

says the opportunity that presented itself several weeks ago was the taliban indicating an interest in resuming indirect talks on bergdahl and their detainees at gaut know. the president called them on tuesday and gave each other asurnss about the transfers. the language is important here because, as you know, it has been a long held u.s. policy not to negotiate with terrorists. so when asked about that senior officials say there were no direct talks between the u.s. and taliban. they emphasized the fact that they were the mediators and they also emphasized that point that you said in president obama's statement which is that the u.s. doesn't leave a soldier on the battlefield. so that is how they viewed the situation. through this release, they would argue they preserve the safety

and security of u.s. interests. however, having said that, you have senator john mccain coming forward today praising the release of sergeant bergdahl, but also questioning how it was done saying that he wants to know more of the specifics. >> in and to that point within that statement, senator mccain raised questions about the five who were released. i suspect that that means there will be calls for briefings for folks on the hill coming up. >> i think you're absolutely right about that. we're just starting to learn a little bit more about those five detainees who were released. i am told that they are mid-to high level detainees and the goal is to make sure that they don't pose a threat to the u.s. or to the u.s. interests. i'm being told they will be in qatar for at least a year so that is that part of the negotiation. but you're absolutely right, this is something that lawmakers are going to be asking a lot of

questions about in the coming days. >> kristen welker, thank you. >> thank you. >> i want to bring in military analyst barry mccaffery, and sebastian younger and john sulks. thank you for joining me. general mccaffery, i'm going to start with you. this kind of military action must have required an intense amount of intelligence work on the front end, an intelligence amount of planning. give us a sense of what goes into planning this kind of special forces operation. >> i think that's sort of a minor aspect to be honest. this is good news. the armed forces always wants to get back our missing, those who are killed in action. everybody is thrilled they got bergdahl out. we're losing all our leverage as we draw down so it was a window that was closing. but at the end of the day this

was a diplomatic -- it was probably the right thing to do. these five terrorists are senior commanders that most of them go right back to jihadist activity. we end up recapturing many of them. i think it was the right thing to do. now we want an accounting by the pentagon on how did bergdahl end up leaving the security of u.s. military forces and end up as a captive of the taliban. >> john, i do want to go back to this point of the nature of the operation itself. because i think it's interesting to people. if you think about it, these special forces operators are walking into a situation based on essentially trust that the taliban that bergdahl will be there, that all the pieces come together, that they are not walking in to be sabotaged, there's nothing wrong with him, that he's not any kind of bomb on him. this is a very tense situation.

>> there's always a lot of trust involved. one thing people should know is they are train ed in dealing wih indigenous populations. they are a selected group. you put them forth in the image they portray is more fear. so they are very astute culturally, intelligent people on the ground, professional troops. i'm not sure if they were seals or if they were dealts or so forth and people who train on these things from the minute they go to the military. so very qualified and i think it will be interesting to see how the details come out. the general brings a good point that it was a diplomatic deal, but things can go wrong and here it didn't. >> to that point, intelligence played quite a role in putting this it mission together. >> sure. there's obviously a tremendous amount of due diligence that

goes on on the ground. we have seen other situations where this didn't go the right way. the cia brought an individual on to a compound about three or four years ago and mostly a high value target and the entire compound detonated killing some of the cia officers on the ground. there's always a tremendous amount of risk. but here sometimes it works out and it did here and i think that should be a token going forward. there's been a long debate about should they talk to the taliban. there's been a lot of willingness to talk to the taliban and so the only path forward in sort of a stalemate is negotiation. one of the things we were able to do in iraq is bring the sunni insurgency and bring some over to the government side. you have the president who wants to lower troop levels at 10,000 troops. you cannot leave this soldier behind and lead the war. he's only there from the u.s. government put him there and this is a signal that the administration is firmly committed to getting out of

afghanistan. we can't leave him and pull the rest of the troops out. >> you have covered the war and spent a lot of time with one particular group of men. i would suspect an announcement like this is great for morale. it was clearly a complex operation and the young man has been missing for five years and the ability to get him back and stay true to that promise that we're not going to leave anyone behind, i would have to think that's going to be a positive for our forces that are still there. >> it's probably demoralizing to have a soldiers missing. the guys i was with probably the thing they feared the most was being captured. the guys were fearless about combat but being captured was a different thing. there was one guy who was wounded and being dragged off by the taliban and recovered and tragically he died. but you're wounded and dragged off by the taliban is the

nightmare for soldiers. this is a psychologically an enormous gift to the soldiers. >> final question to you, general. it was interesting that there was proof of life ant december or january, but prior to that it had been about three years since there was any kind of contact. what do you suspect may have created the conditions for this negotiation as we learned that it's really just restarted in the last couple of weeks. >> it's hard to e know. i think a lot of things are coming together. the president correctly, in my view, put us on a draw down to end our involvement in afghanistan. $600 billion, 2200 killed and wounded. it's time to come out. sebastian is entirely right. it's a big morale factor for soldiers in general to know we won't leave you behind. we'll come get you. even if it turns out to have been misconduct, we'll come get you. so the window is closing.

i'm not convinced we ought to stay with 10,000 troops. we're clearing the decks and this is good news. two where missing in action in iraq, but this almost closes the book. 60,000 killed and wounded and as a general statement none of them are held prisoner now. >> i can't imagine the joy that his family must be feeling at this moment. can't wait to see them all reknew nieted. we're going to watch the story as it unfolds. our thanks to the panel. coming up, with secretary eric shinseki out at the v.a., the most important question to be answered now is what can be done to actually help our wounded warriors. that's ahead. we need it right away! we cannot let the fans down. don't worry! the united states postal service will get it there on time with priority mail flat rate shipping.

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i was too trusting of some and i have accepted as accurate reports that i now know to have been misleading. >> eric shinseki offered me his resignation. with regret, i accept it. >> that was president obama announcing the inevitable hours after now former secretary of veterans affairs eric shinseki took full responsibility for the vast scandal at the v.a. as the scandal and speculation about the future continued to grow, so did calls from both sides of the aisle for him to step down. with the distraction of eric shinseki, a hero who served in our military, wounded during his time in vietnam, no longer around. what now? just as the president announced his resignation, the v.a. quietly released results of another audit that found

misconduct at 60% of health facilities surveyed. where do we go from here? the most important question is how do we make sure that the misconduct is corrected, but more importantly how do we make sure our veterans get the medical treatment they deserve as quickly as possible. what will be the political fallout for the administration. joan and joe are back onset with me. i'm still joined by sebastian younger and joining us at the table, national journal. i was trying to vamp a little bit there. so joan, shinseki resigned, but from a token perspective, he's out, but now what is the question? >> i think this is a time that would be nice to see the old fashioned bipartisanism that we used to hear about. i mean this has been a problem on a lot of people's watch. he does have to fix it and we're

already hearing some calls for more privatization, there's some worrisome ways this can be politici politicized but i think i was sad to see him go. i'm sure it was the right decision. the president made it, but as the person who warned us what was going to happen in iraq, to be taking the fall for this mess was a little ironic and a little painful. >> it was very painful. although i would say, as i was saying during the break, i would like to see the president take some action, let's get a thousand doctors out there volunteering to take care of the backlogs. your colleagues have written some suggestions. let's just increase the budget, to me that sounds like another six months of bureaucracy. >> not just six months, but to hire more claims processors, it takes about two years to train them. so this takes a long time to do. so there are a few things that the v.a. could do right now.

one is have the doctors fill out some claims rather than the veterans because they come back incomplete or incorrect. the other is maybe taking the approach that the irs takes. it doesn't audit every single person with the claims. rather than taking the approach of looking at each claim and making sure that it is up to par and they will be reimbursed, but we're already seeing republicans and democrats starting to disagree on what needs to be done, republicans pushing more towards privatization, democrats talking about lack of resource, the need for more doctors. the house passed a bill to allow the head of v.a. to take more action against executives. the senate will take up a version of this bill next week. the house is out. there might be pressure on the senate to just pass the house bill. the difference is the senate bill includes protections for due process for those who face firing. so they are starting to move, but not directly to fix the problems and allow more

veterans. >> and we'll talk to the politics for a moment here. i think it is important to remember that we have a number of republicans who oppose additional funding for the v.a. and frankly i look at this as this is a failure from the beginning to adequately plan for the war. you shouldn't just plan for being in combat, but you have to be able to plan part fact that all these men and women will be coming home and some with injuries and health care needs. >> and different types of injuries based on the type of wars. world war ii soldiers will have different injuries than vietnam soldiers. vietnam soldiers have different injuries than the persian gulf and afghanistan. the thing that really upset me is the fact that this politicking that's going on, you know and i know and i think all of us know that i bet you that there are congressmen if they went into their files they would see letters from constituents that have complained about this over and over again. so you can't put this in the lap of the president.

you can't put this in the lap of the v.a. and say we don't have any problem for boehner to stand out there and say this is a failure of the president, he should check his files and see how many veterans or family members september letters asking him to look into this. >> to that point, we have john with us. i heard you talk about this so i know it is a fact. the v.a. system and the problems with the v.a., this is not new. this is a long-term problem in terms of the bureaucracy. one of the things that is tragic on the one hand, shinseki was trying to do the right thing by adding additional veterans to be able to receive care. at the same time, the system i don't think could handle that. >> there's a lot of things that caused this to happen. i want to clarify a couple basic points. people have been confuse d. this was not about the backlog. this is not about disability claims. there's been a backlog because

the president allowed veterans to make a claim for agent orange. that's a veteran saying i need into the system. this was a wait time issue. this was veterans trying to go to the hospital who weren't getting in quick enough to see their doctors. so there's a lot of reasons that happened. iraq and afghanistan veteran cans go to the v.a. for primary care for the first five years they return home. there was a million veterans in this country that were uninsured that chose the v.a. as their primary provider under the affordable care act. so a lot of these issues, iraq and afghanistan, veterans coming home, a lot of this not only caused a backlog in claims process but wait times. but the issues have been decades in the making. it's ironic that general shinseki who was an opponent of the iraq war is dealing with this. the house bill passed last week is a joke. this isn't about one or two bad apples. this is a systemic issue. senator mcconnell blocked a $24 billion package two months ago

because he was krnds about a tea party opponent in his own state. so they are going to put the bill on the floor and the republicans need to pass it and the white house needs to look at ways to lower wait times. there's a couple things to do. one is go to medicare system for nonservice connected veterans. people using the v.a. for their primary care. there's no way to privatize this thing. that's always been what this is about. we're going to start seeing the debate move forward. there's a lot of creative ideas like giving doctors debt forgiveness if they decide to work at the v.a. why do doctors get paid half as much. there's a lot of solutions in the short-term that they need to look at along with the funding issues that need to come out of the senate. >> sebastian? >> i have a very smart vet prend who had a great solution. he said, look, the v.a. isn't working very well. let us sign up for obamacare and you're not allowed to. >> because they should be going to v.a. >> let's add them to obamacare.

done. we have solved it. hau thank you to the panel. coming up, as our troops withdraw from afghanistan, sebastian's new film takes us inside the experience of an american soldier at war and what they miss most when they come home. i don't just make things for a living i take pride in them. so when my moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis was also on display, i'd had it. i finally had a serious talk with my dermatologist. this time, he prescribed humira-adalimumab. humira helps to clear the surface of my skin by actually working inside my body. in clinical trials, most adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis saw 75% skin clearance. and the majority of people were clear or almost clear in just 4 months. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma,

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there's no dip in that bowl. they're new pringles tortillas. so good, they don't need dip. mmmm... not bad, right? i'll have some more! that's a double dip! you... double dipped... new pringles tortillas. you dip 'em or don't. pringles! even if we go down behind had cliff side, or we'd go up on the west side where you had to run off the side of the road because sometimes they would ambush us before we'd even start the patrol. >> for your next spot you're going to go, if they start shooting now, where are you going? i could tell you somebody starts shooting, ooism going up over that desk. no questions.

>> that was from sebastian's new film which is a follow-up to a film focusing on a platoon of american soldiers in afghanistan, known as the valley of death. the new film gives a view into the personal experiences of our soldiers and what they go through, which could not be a more urgent message for americans to hear and understand following president obama's announcement about bringing roops home from afghanistan and the current scandal rocking the veterans affair system and the challenges veterans are facing coming home. sebastian is coming back with us. i have only seen about a third of it. it's an incredible film. part of the goal was to help people get into the experience of what it is to be on the line like that, sort of every day with that level of intensity and adrenaline. >> the first movie was for civilians to experience combat in a cinema, what it's like to be there on the hill top.

this is different. i wanted to unpack it a little bit and went back to the interviews i did after the deployment and realized the soldiers were talking about amazing things like what courage means to them or why they miss the war. so the film really is almost more for the soldiers to understand themselves better. >> you know, one of the things you wrote actually -- or i guess this is from one of your veterans. i invited brendan to a dinner party and a woman asked if he missed anything about life at the outpost. the platoon had endured a year without interpret, running water or hot food and had been in more combat than any other platoon in the united states military. it was hellu but he didn't hesitate. ma'am, i miss almost all of it. i thought that was interesting. in the film, as much as it seems like a hellish experience, so many would go right back. >> many of them said we'd go right back there if we could.

here's what's going on. you get these two very intense drugs in combat. you get enormous amount of adrenaline. and you get an enormous amount of closeness. there's 20 or 30 guys, literally sleeping shoulder to shoulder for a year on a hill top. human beings evolve to do that. that's our prehistory. we're wired for ha kind of closeness and interreliance. we don't get that in an industrial society. when you take young men and put them back in that society, they find that they really start to like it. so what they miss other than the adrenaline and sense of meaning is brotherhood. brotherhood is an intoxicating experience. they come back to their suburb or wherever they live and feel a ailuated. and frankly i'm not surprised. a lot of people in this society do. and they miss it. >> so what is it that we could be doing a better job of when they come home?

they are never going to have a level of adrenaline and intensity in everyday life. if you're a firefighter, maybe. but what do they say they need to better be able to make that transition at home? >> it's an enormous problem and an enormous question. i think what they are sensing is the basic alienation of western society. they didn't realize it before they left because that's all they knew. but they had this experience of a year or so in a small platoon, they come back to a society where the suicide rate is enormous. the rate of depression is enormous. child abuse, mass killings in our communities, that's not a healthy society. i think to help the vets, in some ways we have to heal ourselves. i know that sounds very vague, but ultimately the it's not a quick solution, it's a generational one, but their

reaction to coming home points to fundamental problem in society in general. >> part of that perhaps helping to shoulder the burden that these men and women -- war is hell. it they come home and they are left to deal with those experiences on their own. >> here's the thing. soldiers are sent by the citizens to go fight for them. it's mot the soldier's war. it's our war. it's even our war. you didn't approve of it. it's still our war. and so what soldiers need is to sense that people in this country own the war. it's not something the soldiers went off and did. it's something we all did. maybe reluctantly but we all did it. if we can own it as a society, ha will help veterans enormously in thinking they did something well and there was necessary and now they are welcome home. >> thank you. an incredible film.

it is open in new york and will be opening next week across the country starting next week. go and see this film. it's incredible. it should be required viewing for everybody. thank you so much. coming up, we're going to switch to politics because the republican party has gathered if their annual leadership conference in new orleans this year. which makes me wonder what new ideas does the party have in store for us? ugh. heartburn. did someone say burn? try alka seltzer reliefchews. they work just as fast and taste better than tums smoothies assorted fruit. mmm. amazing. yeah, i get that a lot. alka seltzer heartburn reliefchews. enjoy the relief.

the past, present and future of l republican party is gathered at the hilton in new orleans. but it seems the past and present have dominated the program and the future, well, it's nowhere to be found. audienced were subjected to donald trump, phil robertson,

michele bachmann, ted cruz parade i parading before the mics with no new ideas, none, zero. the only dish that was served, a cold heaping of obama bashing. >> before i even get to obamacare, which is a disaster. >> it begins with an o and ends with a bamacare. >> there's more lies by the president than any human being i think i have been seeing. >> we don't have leadership based upon character in our country. it definitely is not at 1600 pennsylvania. >> this maybe not only the most liberal, the most incompetent president. >> all right, i will admit, maybe i missed something. let's give this another try.

let's cue the new gop ideas. that's what i thought. my panel is back with me. joining us, i'm going to start with you. there were no new ideas. if you it was the same old let's bash president obama fest. >> the 2016 republican agenda is we hate obama. in 2018 we might get we hate hillary. in 2005 when i worked for harry reid, we kept going out and had a positive agenda. we talked about energy independence and had general agreement. they only agree on one thing and that's we hate obama. that means they are not going to win in the future. >> and to that point it's interesting because there's a story last week that suggested some are getting nervous saying

we need a contract for america. and then we had john cornyn saying we don't want to be overpromising. what is that? >> i just sit here amazed. i don't know if i'm is this back to the future? you kept saying future, it's almost like back to the future. it is absolutely crazy. and what really bothers me more than anything else is who are they talking to? >> you know who they are talking to. >> and how many of them are there? so once again, no i think this is a situation where i hope they do keep talking. i really do. i hope they keep it up because i just think that people by august will realize that if anything on your agenda, it's not a matter of overpromising. i mean i just wish they promise to go to work.

that's what -- just go to work, do something. >> to that point, there was a poll recently that americans are tired of hearing about the affordable care act. regardless of how they feel about it. >> they are saying move on, even the people who don't like it think it's crazy to keep trying to repeal it. so the american public is much smarter than the republican party. you ask who they are talking to. they are talking to their elderly, white base. they think that that is what the november elections will turn on and often they do. voters sadly often stay home in the midterms. but i keep thinking they are helping to do the democrats work for them. because the more they demonize this president in such specific and personal, ugly terms, he's a liar, he's incompetent, phil robertson called him evil.

the most evil. there was hitler, i can think of a few evil people. there have been a few more evil people. but no, so they are looking at their base, but i think what they are doing is going to help turn out the democrats base. >> to this question, one of the things is interesting is who is not there. they felt this is the fringe of the party speaking to perhaps not so much just the fringe, but supposedly the base. there's no rand paul, there's no mitch mcconnell, no rubio, no walker, no jeb bush, no huckabee, what's going on here? >> this particular conference for one tends to draw extremely conservative voters and republican activists. where c pac draws a lot of libertarians. that's the conference that rand paul is popular at. we look at the 2010 version of this conference. mitt romney wasn't there. you did have the measure establishment who ended up being the presidential nominee not

being there. so it is interesting that these particular names that you mentioned are not there. but you still have some folks there who are thinking about running. to what john cornyn said about we don't want to overpromise, they are recognizing that even if we take the senate, and we have the house, it doesn't mean we're going to produce anything that can be signed into law that the president will sign into law. maybe it will be two years in which they are try ing ing to pe together a set of bills they hope will rally voters in 2016. >> so final point to you wharks that says to me as just a person who follows politics is, okay, so what you're telling me is if we put you guys back in office, we can expect two more years of exactly what we have been getsing. exactly more of the same, party of no, nothing moving forward, nothing on the agenda like creating jobs. >> look what they are selling. they are selling racial resentment, that's why phil robertson was there. look at the cast of characters.

do donald trump, sarah palin, phil robertson. they complained our debates have become a reality tv show. what do we expect in the future, more reality tv. >> we're going to leave it there. our panel will be back. ahead only in washington could lawmakers bow to the power of the potato lobby. how feeding america's children has turned into a political fight, that's coming up next. i missed you, too.ou. hi buddy. mom! awesome! dad!! i missed you. ♪ oh... daddy. chevrolet and its dealers proudly support military appreciation month. with the industry's best military purchase program, for all that have served.

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michelle obama is putting herself in the front lines. she's going to tell us what food

to eat, what we can put in our school cafeterias. >> leave us alone, get off our back. >> we don't need a nanny state. >> michelle obama's focus here is misplaced. instead of going through the federal government, why suspect she encouraging parents to pack them a lunch. >> why wouldn't you want to raise your own kids when michelle obama will do it for you? >> conservatives have been leveling attacks at michelle o'back for years fighting efforts for healthier kids to limit the amount of sugar, salt and fat. this week we saw the first lady punch right back. she came out swinging at an event on tuesday calling out efforts to roll back nutrition standards for kids' lunches. >> unfortunately despite these successes, we're now seeing efforts in congress to roll back these new standards and undo the hard work that all of you, all of us have done on behalf of our

kids. this is unacceptable. it's unacceptable to me not just as first lady, but as a mother. >> as things continued to heat up this week, plt obama took pen o paper with an op-ed in "the new york times" urging congress not to rollback the usda regulations that have turned school lunches from greasy pizza into fresh fruits and vegetables. the passion comes to no surprise. she's an advocate for improving e health and nutrition since she entered the white house. the let's move campaign is partially responsible for a 43% decline in childhood obesity, which we have seen over the last decade. just as we're starting to see real success in the battle, congressional republicans want to rollback the rules that got us here putting our kids' health at greater risk. sam cass is director of the let's move campaign. i had the chance to speak with him yesterday. take a listen. >> i am joined now from the

white house by sam cass, thank you for joining me. >> thank you for having me. >> so sam, we saw the first lady very fired up this week. she's very passionate about these changes that members of congress are trying to make. >> yeah, she is deeply engaged and very concerned about what we're seeing on the hill. right now, we're seeing politicians putting politics and industry interests ahead of what's good for our kids and ahead of the recommendations from our knew trigss and experts who have helped set good standards for what should be served to our kids in schools. it's deeply concerning. we have seen this before. not too long ago congress stepped in under a lot of entry pressure and classified sauce in pizza as a vegetable as part of the program. so we're seeing this play out again. that's why she's so deeply concerned and trying to do erg we can from preventing that from happening. >> it's my understanding that the standards are starting to work. certainly we're seeing childhood

obesity rates go down. there are some overoutcomes. >> we're seeing increased fruit and vegetable consumption. we're seeing increased whole grain consumption. and coming in the fall, assuming that there's no meddling from congress, junk food will be removed from schools. when you look at we're seeing declines in the youngest kids from age 2 to 5. those kids are now starting to enter our school system. so it's like vital that these are environments that these kids are going into that really foster their health and well being. we can't take any steps backwards. we're looking at a future where 1 in 3 of those children are on track to have diabetes in hair lifetime. we have to continue to move the ball down the field. >> what do you say to the concern that giving the one-year opt out my be a precursor to roll back all of these things? >> this is something i'm deeply concerned about. if you heard some of the

testimony yesterday on the house side, they were asked, are you trying to permanently change this rule? and the answer was, not in this bill. so there's no question that many on the hill are looking at making permanent changes come time for reauthorization, which is going to start this summer. so there's a lot at stake here. i think what's important is that we draw a firm line that science must lead the way that we must listen to our nutritionalists and experts and do everything we can to support our schools. but kids' health have to come first. >> there's a senate version of this legislation and it will have to be rectified with the house version. are we going to see more activity when that conversation is happening? >> absolutely. this is something that the first lady is going to be engaged on as long as it's an issue. and if she's engaged, i'm engaged.

and we got a long way to go. there's a lot more that's going to play out on this issue. the senate has put forth some proposals. there's certainly a much, much better than what we saw on the house. we want to make sure that science leads always. we're going to do everything we can to push that agenda. but in the end, it's just critical that we remember so many of these kids, this is the only food they are getting. hunger is such a deep problem for our young people and we see when kids are getting the nutritious breakfast. hair test scores are going up by 17%. they are performing better in school. and story after story about increased participation in school, better grades, better graduation rates. so there's a lot at stake here. we're going to do everything we cannot to roll any of this back. >> thank you so much. our panel is back with one fix. we were talking about this on your radio show yesterday in

terms of science leading the way. sam and i talked a little bit about this. but in terms of educational outcomes, you have talked to some experts and they are seeing improvements because children have the nutrients to learn. >> that's absolutely right. we saw improvements when we said, look, children can't smoke tobacco. let me tell you what i'm really thinking as an activist sitting here. the american medical association should speak up loudly. the american dental association should speak up loudly. there are a lot of organizations out here, the first lady shouldn't have to fight this battle alone. and where are their voices when it comes to this? and finally, someone needs to tell the republicans that this goes back to the 1930s. this is when this whole thing began, 1930s.

part of it is national security. i would do one other thing. if i had to put together a public service ad, i would -- kids react to these kinds of things. when someone is obese and has morbidity, they start cutting off your toes and amputating your legs and children respond to that type of thing. these people are not conservatives. i'm sorry to say, her regressives. where they are taking us back to i just don't absolutely know. but i'm saying doctors, nurses, dentists, you folks need to support the first lady on this. >> to that point, part of the problem we're talking about here is we're talking about big food, as it's been called, lobbying. that's how the pizza sauce became a vegetable. but big lobbyists, there's big

money behind it. >> think about this. 25 years ago this year, barbara bush said reading is a priority for our students and her issue was improving reading. can you imagine if democrats came out and said you're a reading fascist. can you imagine how insane that sounds? republicans are saying children should be fat. and that's insane and it's two things. it's based on resentment at michelle obama, hatred of president obama, but lobbying for the food industry. and in part the entertainment industry who makes money on licensing here to all those combined lobbying against food standards. it's disgusting and shows how washington works in the worse w way. >> for a lot of kids, this is where they get their fresh vegetables and fruits. >> the arrogance and the elitism of people talking about the nanny state, i mean so many kids rely on this food.

it's a building block of their day, of their childhood, of their education. i also want to speak to some of our sisters who suggested that the first lady didn't pick herself enough of a target and an activity with her time. i mean she's taking on, as we have said, some of the big lobbies in this country. >> we have to leave it there. thank you to my panel this afternoon. i'll see you back here tomorrow. have a great night. new private . making new york state number two in the nation in new private sector job creation... with 10 regional development strategies to fit your business needs. and now it's even better because they've introduced startup new york... with the state creating dozens of tax-free zones where businesses pay no taxes for ten years. become the next business to discover the new new york. [ male announcer ] see if your business qualifies. because you can't beat zero heartburn. woo hoo!

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