why would anyone in the saudi government, whether prince bandar now a national security adviser to the anyone he was the saudi ams about dor to the united states as you well know and considered a close friend of the united states what i would they want to -- why would they want to plot to bomb the world trade center or the horrible things done on 9/11? >> well those are additional unand questions. i can give you my informed speculation because this had happened previously. bin laden was very upset with the kingdom because it allowed foreign forces the united states forces on the soil of saudi arabia during the first persian gulf war. he had wanted to use his afghanistan trained warriors to defend the country. after the first person gulf war as he was planning what became 9/11 bin laden recognized there was littles chance they could be successful without some support by people who knew the language knew the culture of the united states. he knew that saudi arabia had a network of people like those who were in san diego, who were there to monitor saudi students and he insisted that it --

my charge against prince bandar when he was on the show is the saudi government has played footsie with the younger generation of al qaeda people to keep them off their back, saying okay, you cause trouble wherever you want but leave our royal family and us alone here in saudi arabia. they pay them off. they pay for everything. they make sure they're well received in other countries like our country. do you have any evidence that they purposely helped with the attack of 9/11, the saudi government or its agents? >> i think that the saudi government at the highest levels capitulated to bin laden who threatened the kingdom with civil unrest if they would not agree to provide him with a network of persons inside the united states who could assist the hijackers. remember, the hijackers, most of them didn't speak english. most of them had never been to the united states before. highly implausible they could have carried out that attack without some external support. >> was there intent to mollify them and keep them within bounds, or was it to help them be terrorists? which was it? >> i think

the iranians directed the ship to sail toward their navy's main port at bandar abbas. there were no americans aboard, but the u.s. navy sent a destroyer to monitor the situation. >> woodruff: the u.s. senate has begun debating a bill to let congress review and possibly reject any nuclear agreement reached with iran. the bill has bipartisan support and republican majority leader mitch mcconnell predicted a vigorous discussion. >> preventing the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism from gaining access to nuclear weapons should be the goal of all senators no matter what party they belong to. the price of a bad agreement with iran could be catastrophic. >> woodruff: republicans have offered more than 50 amendments on everything from iran's human rights record to its support for islamist militants. minority leader harry reid and other democrats warned some of the amendments are "poison pills" designed to disrupt the nuclear negotiations. >> a number of my republican colleagues have stated publicly in their efforts to be a republican nominee for president, what they wa

today, it sailed to bandar abbas, the iranian navy's main port.n new york, foreign minister javad zarif insisted iran is not trying to be provocative. >> for us, the persian gulf is our lifeline and nothing is more important for us than freedom of navigation in those waters and we are committed to it and we will respect freedom of navigation. >> woodruff: the ship sails under the flag of the marshall islands. the iranian government said there's a court judgment against the company that chartered the vessel. >> ifill: back in this country, capital punishment was back before the u.s. supreme court. the justices heard arguments on whether a drug used in several botched lethal injections, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. separately, the court upheld state laws that bar elected judges from personally soliciting campaign contributions. 30 states have such laws. >> woodruff: california governor jerry brown today ordered the state's greenhouse gas emissions to be slashed 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. brown called it "the most aggressive benchmark

the one winner of the fraying of the bandar would be the cable operators because of their broadband marketability to price broadband, but now you have got regulatory intervention that raises questions about that. everybody right now scratching their heads over -- who are the winners in this? if you really do unravel the bundle, then all of the weak channels disappear. tom: how much power does espn have? this comes down to negotiations and power. craig: right now, let's take their word for it for a moment that they have contracts that say you cannot take espn out or put it on a separate sports era, and i think that is right, the fact that they can get that clause tells you they have an awful lot of power that they can dictate those terms. why is verizon provoking a fight with the programmers because in their wireline business where they are doing the smaller packages now, when the foundational strategy of their wireless is this is to strike -- wireless business is to strike deals with these exact same companies? it is certainly looks that way from the outside. they must have some grand stra