beat the tennessee titans by one point. tomorrow, the giants play the steelers. sunday, the bills play the colts. happy football season, everybody. and i hope your team has a a name you can say without wincing. "weekends with alex witt" starts now. making his case. president obama with a staunch defense of his health care program had an interesting take on his relationship with vladimir putin. a live report ahead. in the wilderness. a new search in the kidnapping suspect and the 16-year-old who disappeared with him. dramatic and deadly. floodwaters and drenching rain sweeping parts of this country. will the dangerous weather hit you today? are you more or less inclined to grab a burger now?

good morning and welcome to "weekends with alex witt". we have breaking news overnight from sandy hook, california. police have confirmed that the body of a child discovered inside the charred fire of a home set on fire last weekend belongsen to 8-year-old ethan anderson. the remains of his mother were also in that home. james lee i did mantleeo is suspected of kidnapping 16-year-old hannah anderson. his car has been located in idaho. a report from san diego a bit later on this hour. the day's other story, in a matter of hours, president obama will be in orlando, florida. it comes on the heels of a wide-ranging news conference a day before he begins a weeklong vacation. chuck todd asked about nsa leaker edward snowden. >> he now more a whistle-blower than he is a hacker? is he a patriot?

>> i don't think mr. snowden was a patriot. as i said in my opening remarks, i called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before mr. snowden made these leaks. after canceling a planned summit, president obama described his relationship with the russian president. >> i don't have a bad relationship with mr. putin. when we have conversations, they're candid they're blunt, oftentimes constructive. >> and he addressed concerns about al qaeda and the concerns across africa. >> has been decimated. but what i also said was that al qaeda and other extremists have metastasized into regional groups that can pose significant dangers.

>> well, the president defended health care reforms and had these words for republican opponents. >> i think the really interesting question is why it is that my friends and the other party have made the idea of preventing these people from getting health care their holy grail. their number one priority. >> let me bring in reporter for the "washington post" ed o'keefe and elise. good morning to you. ed, the obvious question here, which came first, edward snowden's revelations or the president's decision to change the program? >> the the snowden revelations. he seemed to be returning to his old self by admitting programs do need a little more light shined on them. but there was no rush at the white house and certainly not really on capitol hill before it is known to start handing this

out to the "washington post" and the guardian to get this done. once this information really became clear and you saw the bipartisan support for really changing the program, did the white house and the various really get together and realize, okay, if we don't get ahead and try to make changes, congress will force us to do things that could jeopardize it all. >> the president threw out four ideas on how to amend things. i want to get reaction, do they fear this move towards more nsa transparency could damage national security. what are people saying? >> i think, you know, democrats and republicans reacted to yesterday's press conference in a lot of different ways. they are watching the obama's poll numbers. i don't think it will substantially change the public's sraouf these programs. obama was talking about very

small tailoring. he released a memo that provided a legal background for why he is doing this. he proposed a change to the patriot act that would be fairly small in the public's mind. and the secret courts. it's hard to say what the public will think of these changes. let's get to the president vladimir putin. they called them candid and blunt, the pause, and calling them constructive. >> it's funny. i thought to myself, if you have a good relationship with somebody you shouldn't have to say out loud you have a good relationship with them. and i think clearly what he was trying to do is suggest things are fine. but he needled putin by saying the body language looked pretty bad. he looked like a bored school kid. you're really going to call an international counterparts a bored school kid and make fun of

him. i think overseas there will be pause about what president obama did there. condoleezza rice certainly put it well and sort of encapsulated what a lot of people are thinking. russia is at best the 16th largest economy. we don't necessarily need to be wasting time with this country if they thumb their nose at us and not hand us back edward snowden and not necessarily cooperate on other things. the president tried the administration. maybe they realized it's time to step back a little bit. it doesn't look like the meetings that were going on yesterday between the diplomats in town really yielded anything substantial. so he will go to the g20 meeting, see putin but they don't have a face to face. >> let's go to obama care. the president gave his most robust push on obama care. the gop wants to leave 30 million people without coverage.

why voicing this so strongly now? >> well, as you know, congress is in august recess. they're out in town halls talking to constituents. there is a certain amount of ground swell for this push to defund the government -- sorry, to shut it down to defend obama care. obama is positioning himself ahead of the budget battles that will happen in september and possibly october. and also ahead of october 1st, which is when the new insurance exchanges open. they still have a long way to go in terms of educating the public about this law. president obama is one of the effective spokespeople. obviously he has a great talent for selling these programs and they haven't utilized him very much. >> to that point i want to pick right up with that. ed, do you think democrats wished the president had been more forceful on obama care? >> absolutely. voting in the house 40 times to repeal portions of it.

>> yeah. and i think what he did there, now that he is slipping into vacation a few days gives cover for those who will be at the town halls trying to get constituents to sign up for obama care and say to them, look, the president said last week, i agree with you. that will will give some cover. before they all left town, the president met with him and delivered a similar message behind closed doors. he was asked a question yesterday, was pretty forceful. i suspect you will hear democrats pick up his language and use it in the coming weeks. >> just to your point, alex, i was going to say congressional democrats have been very unhappy with efforts on this law. they think the rollout has not gone as smoothly as it should. they think the messaging is off. and i think obama needs to be strengthening his relationships on the hill in a certain way if democrats are going to be selling this law as forcefully as they should over august recess. >> ed o'keefe, elise fahbeck,

thank you. major flooding in parts of the country. one person died after heavy rains in colorado triggered floods and mudslides. look at that. much of the rain fell in an area scorched by wildfire last summer, which spoupbcompounds t problem. meteorologist dylan dreyer is here with the forecast. good morning. >> good morning, alex. flooding is going to be another issue today. we look at most of the flash flood warnings across parts of missouri, northern arkansas. there are a few isolated flash flood warnings in virginia and western carolina. more heavy rain is already developing across northern arkansas. and because of that, we are going to see a large potential for more flooding today. it's in this area where since

the beginning of august they have already picked up 10 to 15 inches of rainfall. it's in the areas like southern missouri, northern arkansas where most of the rain has been seen most of this month. we are going to see an additional three to four inches possible in northern arkansas. and the rest of the southeast we should see at least one to two inches of additional rainfall. mostly because of scattered showers and storms that produce heavy downpours. in the northeast, it looks nice. 79 in chicago. 85 today in kansas city. sunday, temperatures finally get out of the triple digits in parts of central and southern texas.

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new this morning, 18 of the 19 u.s. embassys and consulates were closed across the middle east are expected to reopen tomorrow. but due to potential concerns, the state department says our embassy in yemen, as well as the consulate will remain closed at least for now.

>> al qaeda is on its heels. it's been decimated. i said it had metastasized into regional groups that can post significant dangers. >> joining me now is counterterrrorism expert with the foundation for the defense of democracies. david, welcome to you. there's core al qaeda and the ancillary splintered off groups of al qaeda. overall, does al qaeda still have the capacity to strike u.s. targets? >> the answer seems to be yes. i would challenge the president's distinction, though. this has come out in the wall street journal and other place. al qaeda named the name of the yemeni branch as general manager. this suggests the conception of core al qaeda limited to

afghanistan and pakistan isn't necessarily correct. if you have such an important mission in charge of the branch that suggests there is intersection between the core and the affiliates. >> how do you interpret the 18 of 19 embassies, consulates that reopen tomorrow? does that mean threat has passed? >> i think temporarily it has. there haven't been any arrests. we vice president apprehended the alleged team that was ready to strike at an embassy somewhere in the world. that means the threat could return at some point in time. it's not a surprise that the embassy hasn't been opened. but i suggest if they're still out there one thing that means is at some point thbg reconstitute and try to attack again. we probably feel for the the moment the immediate threat has passed. >> can you get behind what it was that drew them to close out of the abundance of caution so many embassies at the same time. is that normal protocol, or was

there something that was quite profound they were getting? >> it's obviously not normal protocol. we have not done this before. they describen cysted communication that allowed multiple users to take part. there were about 20 major operatives from various parts of the world. if you look at that number and compare it to the embassies we shut down, it seems certain, and there is some version of this, that the embassy closures indicate where those operatives were coming from. they got a piece of information that made it seem that there was a plot that could be in any number of places that was in advanced stages. whether it was or not, we will be debating for a while. there's not enough to assess the judgment. but that at least is the judgment they based the closures on. >> there was some sort offen cysted information.

is this something we got because of the nsa telephone records? >> excellent question. we don't know the answer to this. reporting has been all over the place. this is haphazard ways in which source versus talked to the media. there was a courier that was intercept intercepteds. i think some are related to kopbt verse ya over nsa. overall, this is part of a foreign spying program. >> speaking of the controversy, the president spoke in great detail during that address to the media on friday. and here's part of that. >> no, i don't think mr. snowden was a patriot. as i said in my opening remarks, i called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations

before mr. snowden made these leaks. >> the reforms that the president is calling for? >> i think that's an open question. certainly he wouldn't be trumpeting them this much. still, i can't really read the president solely on this one. >> we thank you for what you did. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> long advice from shakespeare. ♪ there's a new way to fight litter box odor. introducing tidy cats with glade tough odor solutions. two trusted names, one amazing product.

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this is an interesting trend. you can take a healthy company and grow it over time. for consumers it's had a negative connotation and is associated with being in over your head or your home was under water. but that is starting to change in two categories. people are buying automobiles and taking loans for them. taking debt on. and education. and our credit worthiness is much higher. so what's driving is that everybody is putting their financial houses in order, which means this is a stunning stat, mortgage, property taxes, equity as a percentage of income, 15%. that's the lowest it's been since 1980. we're poised to spend more when we decide to. >> what about the the new gallup poll dishing on fast food.

do you like that? >> very good. we know it's not good for us. 76% of people say, yeah, it's not too good. 80% on a monthly basis. 50% on a weekly basis. people have skwrbs. they're commuting. they will pay a a people kwroupl. and the landscape is changing. subway and starbucks are counted as fast food restaurants and they have healthy options. >> what about atm machines getting a reboot? >> this is so cool. they will have video. someone will actually pop up. it's not just someone chatting with you. i don't know anybody who has ever gotten tech help at home when you call about your computer and they will say i'm going to take over and they're taking over the screen. that's what happens here.

someone virtual will take over. banks can be open longer and your deposit will happen much more quickly. if you haven't seen one yet, odds are you will in the next 12 months. summer 2013, are you eating more or less fast food? talk to me on twitter. i'll get to some of your tweets later on this afternoon. in this morning's one-minute play back, anti immigration party in australia dropped out after a blundering interview in which she referred to islam as a country. she said the interview was edited to make her look quite the fool. take a look for yourself. >> islam as a country but i do feels their laws shouldn't be welcome here in australia.

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authorities were very cautious about approaching that car first because there's concern that james deimagineeo may be armed with explosives. a bomb squad was able to check out that car yesterday them. found no sign of explosives. vet from here in san diego must still search to see if there's any evidence, including includes that might lead them to dimaggio and anderson. >> with respect to the spotting of the two of them, they were hiking apparently. where did that happen? and what kind of an area is that? >> it is a very rural, wooded, mountainous, treacherous area a few miles outside the town of cascade. a horseback rider spotted them hiking through that area on wednesday. he didn't realize at the time who they were.

it was later in the day the rider saw the amber alert and realized it might be dimaggio and hannah anderson. a much more concentrated search will be taking place today by foot, by air, and by horseback. it's a 300 square mile area. it won't be easy. they will do what they can to see if they can find them in that heavily wooded, treacherous terrain. >> it is the frank church river of no return wilderness. that's rather dubious. can you talk about the relationship he had with hannah's family? was a a long-time boyfriend of her mother? >> at this point everyone tells us dimaggio is a very close family friend, someone they have known for more than 16 years. they became friends with him a few months before hannah was born. he was considered to be like an uncle to the kids, someone who was very close to all of them.

they would spend a lot of time at his house hanging out with him. he was definitely a close friend of there. >> thank you, joe. it is now almost 32 minutes past the hour. time for your fast five headlines. embattled san diego mayor will complete his behavioral modification therapy today. he will continue it as an outpatient. he is facing increasing calls for his resignation amid sexual misconduct allegations from 14 women. the florida department of law enforcement said they will investigate the takesing death of an 18-year-old graffiti artist. a miami beach officer fired a stun gun. he died at the hospital later. the owner of a luxury boutique is offering a monetary

reward. the store owner said it was a miscommunication. in northwest france, angry farmers continue to throwing eggs at a tax office all this weekend in protest over low egg prices. they smashed 100,000 eggs yesterday >> banning backpacks and large purses at nfl games. president obama is scheduled to deliver a strong mental on the economy in orlando before heading on a week-long investigation. kristen welker, good morning to you. he released a message on the economy this morning. so what's he saying? >> well, good morning, alex. president obama's focus is on housing and the economy in his weekly trace today, which we just got the transcript for.

and this is sort part of president obama's larger message on the economy. he's been criss-crossing the country, talking about ways in which he would like to see the economy improved when congress is back in session in the fall. he's also, by the way, taking some credit for the improvements we have seen so far. on housing, the president earlier this week mapped out what he would like to see happen now, including winding down fannie mae and freddie mac. and new investments in rehabbing houses and vacant lots and making it easier for folks to refinance their homes at lower interest rates. of course he will need congress if he want toss move forward with some of those initiatives. so gearing up for fights we will see this fall. here's more of what he had to say. take a listen. >> congress should give every american the chance to refinance at today's low rates. we should help more qualified

families get a mortgage and buy their first home. we should get construction workers back on the job, rebuilding communities hit hardest by the crisis. and we should make sure the folks who don want to buy a home have a decent, affordable place to rent. >> and alex, as you mentioned, president obama heads to orlando before he arrives here in martha's vineyard. the president and the first lady will be speaking to disabled veterans. the first lady has really made helping veterans one of her signature issues. so we expect the president and first lady to focus on issues that are facing disabled veterans and also to talk about one of the issues, the backlog of veterans waiting for their benefits. florida has been a state particularly hard hit. a large number of veterans have been waiting for their benefits for 125 days or longer. that fits into the larger neck

on the economy. we expect them to address the issue of jobs for vets as well in orlando. the president, sort of with all of this aiming to have the final word before he does begin his vacation here in marthas vineyard and gearing up for the fiscal fights. we saw that factor into his news conference yesterday. he sort of dared republicans to shut down the government over defunding health care laws. they want to defund obama care. first, everyone goes on vacation. >> absolutely. but not before we, by the way, we'll have the president's marks live from orlando. thank you, kristen. a bit more on the pointed remarks he made at his major news conference on friday. announcing reforms to the nsa surveillance saying they were fast tracked by edward snowden's

leaks. >> i don't think he was a patriot. as i said in my opening remarks, i called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before mr. snowden made these leaks. i think we would have gotten to the same place. and we would have done so without putting at risk our national security and some very vital ways we were able to get intelligence that we need to secure the country. >> joining me now is david sis lany. representative, i'm glad to have you here. the president said we would have gotten to this point in all likelihood regardless of edward snowden. is this a victory for him? it seems to be happening on a fast track basis. >> well, good morning. i think the president is right. he had called for some of these reforms. and members of congress have raised concerns about the current nsa programs. and there are a variety of proposals to reform that.

it's hard to know if it's being down more quickly. certainly things we need to do to properly balance the security of our country and the privacy interest of american citizens. there's a lot we can do to ensure effectiveness. it's hard to know whether it's done more quickly because of snowden's disclosures. no question there's a robust national conversation now as a result of his disclosures. >> and it has affected this. the president addressed his relationship with russia and vladimir putin. he said their conversations are candid and blunt, pause, but often constructive. how would you characterize it? >> well, i think there's no question that the relationship between united states and russia is an important one and a complicated one. the president is right, we have not made the progress we would hope from regional conflicts to nuclear issues to a missile

defense. but we have important trade relationships. yesterday the secretary of defense and secretary of state's met with their counterparts. a meeting between the resident and president putin is high level, obviously and should only take place when there is substantial progress on those important issues. and i think the snowden asylum grant has made it more complicated and more difficult. and we have to continue to try to build the relationship there. but we also need them to understand there are consequences for the decisions they make. >> speaking of consequences, do you think canceling his meeting is a strong enough gesture? what about the call to boycott the olympics in sochi. >> i think canceling the meeting was appropriate. and i can canceling the olympics would be a mistake. first of all, we have great

american athletes who have been training for a long time to compete and represent our country. there's always been the sense that the olympics are different. this is a different venue. and it's one of those opportunities for countries from all over the world to come together and to compete and has withstood the test of time in very different kinds of relationships. it's important to compete and win. >> in fact, were we to boycott this, it would be the second time we would boycott united states presence in russian olympics as we did so under president jimmy carter. i think that has to be taken into the equation as well. may i ask about the closure of the 19 embassies through the terror let's. what do you think? was it a proportional response? what does it tell you about the potential of al qaeda? >> it's a reminder that al qaeda

is a threat to the safety of americans. i think this is the work of really good nsa and security officials that work around the world to keep american citizens safe. they received information. they responded to it. 18 of 19 are reportedly going to open sunday and monday. but i think, you know, this is just a reminder that we are fighting terrorism and people want to do harm to our country and to american citizens all over the world. and we have to be sreupvigilant. we need to do that consistent with our values and constitutional protections that are a treasured part of our history. >> absolutely. the president also addressed republican concerns. let's take a listen to what he

had to say. >> my friends in the other party had made the idea of prevending these people from getting health care their holy grail. their number one priority. the the one unifying principal in the republican party at the moment is making sure that 30 million people don't have health care. >> he's considered the best salesman when it comes to the affordable care act known as owe mama care. this is his strongest statement yet. why wait until the gop members in the house voted 40 times to repeal it? >> i think the president is exactly right. this is a plan which adds 30 million americans to health care coverage, that ends pre-existing medical conditions. young people can stay on their parents's plan until age 26. it ends lifetime caps on insurance policies. this is very good for americans all across our country. and he's right, the republicans

have tried 40 times to defund or undermine obama care. and this is bringing tremendous benefit to small businesses, to families, to millions of people denied access to coverage today. and it's a very important part of rebuilding our economy, to ensure that people have access to quality affordable health care. and it's hard to understand why republicans have made this their number one unifying highest priority, to ensure all the benefits are eliminated and 30 million americans don't have access to health care. it doesn't make any sense. >> thanks for your time. appreciate it. >> thanks, alex. >> a big change to twitter. that's ahead. ♪ (tires screeching) red hot deal days are back. (alarm beeping) stop for no one. what? it's red hot deal days. get $100 off the samsung galaxy note ii with features like pop-up play. lets you use any app while watching video.

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and donald trump. yesterday it was all about hillary clinton for 2016. a forum called madam president. casey hunt is in ames, iowa. early good morning to you. let's talk about the focus, casey, with this family leadership summit this year because it's a nonelection year. >> good morning, alex. the family leadership summit, it's 2013. they haven't even set up the soapbox at the iowa state fair. we were over there yesterday. so it's still very early. the evangelical community here wants to put an early mark on whatever becomes the fight to win the caucuses here in advance of the 2016 election. that's really the goal, is to make sure they stay in the spotlight. >> okay. in terms of the timing here,

let's talk about two of the gentlemen on stage. rick santorum. no stranger to iowa. and we haven't seen senator ted cruz at such a high profile event. what can you tell us about the optics. >> to start with senator ted cruz, he's trying to make a mark in this universe. he's scheduled to speak at a dinner in fall. this will be his first major speech. his father is a pastor, a cuban immigrant who is a pastor in dallas. so we will get a chance to see both on stage together. as far as rick santorum, he made a little secret that he's interested in a presidential run. he's been traveling all over the state. he was out in council bluffs. he was in des moines at the state fair yesterday. he's here in ames today. he's still ostensibly being coy about his ambitions.

i talked to him about that yesterday. >> i have many decisions. look, one of the things -- i was in town in sioux city yesterday showing a movie from the movie company that i'm involved in, trying to engage folks at a different w 6th to start taking back the popular culture. we have to start having an impact. that's what i'm focusing on now. >> so santorum is essentially saying he's going to spend the next year or so focused on these cultural issues. one of the things he mentioned is republicans who are willing to sacrifice their values as he described it in order to win elections aren't the republicans that he sees leading the the party. he will be pretty willing to step up and be the kind of leader he needs. >> it's interesting. he did win a year and a half ago the iowa caucuses. so there you have it. let's talk about the madam president. >> her name was obviously at the

top of the list. and senator khreur mccaskill said she hopes in 2016 she is saying madam president. they are talking about building campaigns. wendy davis became famous for opposing the abortion ban. there. >> casey hunt, that you can very much, from ames, iowa. what happens when someone on twitter threatens your life, next. hello? boo! i am the ghost of meals past. when you don't use pam, this is what you get. residue? i prefer food-based phantasm, food-tasm. poultry-geist works too if you used chicken.

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do the changes go far enough? what about the changes here in

the u.s.? goldy taylor is managing the goldy taylor project who herself recently received violent threats over twitter. goldy, with a good morning to you, what happened? i'm going to show a couple of these tweets because i want people to realize these are not minor harassments. there was a tweet to the parliament member that read you better watch your back because i'm going to rape you. and i know where you work. better watch over your shoulder. you won't know before it happens. racial slurs came your way that i'm not repeating. talk about what you saw and what happened? >> this was one of those people who engaged me and others in a negative way. typically we just lail them as patrols and we move along. some of my followers spotted other things later on. he posted what he believed was my office address. he posted later that he was

going to send two after me. two were on the way. which is double tap to the forehead. so there were a series of tweets over the course of the night. and we decided we needed to turn them in to twitter. this was clearly a violation of their terms of service. as a self-policing community we really needed to take a proactive position and talking to the company. it has a couple better some reporting system. the next four to five days, nothing happened. break obama was the twitter handle. he continued to make threat until a critical mass began tweeting twitter directly and to their head of security. within the next 24 hours after that the account was suspended but not before one important thing happened. one of my very, very law scribes out of california went online

and he was able to within a matter of hours identify the person who was making the threats. and so what we found out very quickly is once that was done, this person started to scrub their online presence. they started to change their twitter handles. and sort of clean up their background. but the issue is this. digital footprints are forever. we turned it over to the dallas fbi. they are violent threats we have to take seriously. >> you are very much a ppropone of first amendment rights. where does the line get drawn. >> he invoked his first amendment rights but they don't protect violent threats. they don't give you safe haar pore for threatening to kill someone, threatening to rape someone. certainly it protects you if you're making racially charged speech you not when you're

making threats. and certainly not on a private company's platform. twitter is not a bull horn on a sidewalk. >> thank you for coming on and sharing your story. i'm glad changes are in effect. appreciate your time. that's a wrap of this show, everyone. look forward to seeing you at noon eastern on "weekends with alex witt". ♪ (announcer) bring the adventure to their bowl with a whole world of exciting flavors. friskies. feed the senses. [ crashing ] [ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. trusted heartburn relief that goes to work in seconds.

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