not simply in this administration, i will add, but to the previous administration. because we have spent money as if it were not chinese, as if it were our own, as if it were ours and not that of future generations of americans. we are burdening them. and the $85 billion in tax increases that will occur along with $110 billion in budget cuts is estimated to have somewhere between a one-half to one and a quarter percent impact on gdp growth. we're looking at the prospect of hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost. you mentioned the defense industry, but throughout this already beleaguered economy we're talking about more jobs being lost. it's the most -- megyn: because there's no political courage in washington. >> there's no political courage -- megyn: none. the republicans don't want to raise taxes, and the democrats don't want to agree to any spending cuts. >> well, it's idiotic. the house has put forward a budget. it's idiotic to raise taxes in this environment right now, there is no question. it is stupid beyond belief to even contemplate it. and to cut just wi

egypt, libya, obama administration, criticism from governor romney.com [ owner ] i need to expand to meet the needs of my growing business. but how am i going to fund it? and i have to find a way to manage my cash flow better. [ female announcer ] our wells fargo bankers are here to listen, offer guidance and provide you with options tailored to your business. we've loaned more money to small businesses than any other bank for ten years running. so come talk to us to see how we can help. wells fargo. together we'll go far. wells fargo. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. and that their homeowners insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesn't. stop pretending. only flood insurance covers floods. ♪ visit floodsmart.gov/pretend to learn your risk. lou: back now with our panel of foreign-policy experts. let me turn to you, what are the prospects now for u.s. interest in policy in the middle east given what has happened now to our ambassador to the embassy and libya and egypt. >> what has happened

it seems this is beginning to compound this administration -- this administration is being -- it seems to be compounding the mistakes of judgment or the outright misrepresentation of reality to the american people. >> i think that's exactly right, louings and it's not starting with the director of national intelligence, but our counterterrorism directer who testified on capitol hill saying it was a terrorist attack. it was a coordinated attack. it was an indirect fire, direct fire, and now you have the ndi with this statement. to me, the most porn and significant thing learned today, lou, is all the members of the senate foreign relations committee, kerry, the chairman, allegedly doing debate preparations with president obama this weekend, but in a bipartisan and unanimous show of support said the american people deserve and demand to know answers to what happened, and this administration has been less than forthcoming at best, misleading at worst, and lying if you want to get down to it, to the american people to make the president's political fortunes look better over the tragic deat

the obama administration.s is an ongoing war too. debates about foreign policy are a vital part of our democracy. and i don't know why the media is rushing to criticize mitt romney for criticizing a foreign policy when they did not do that to barack obama or john kerry when they exercised their right to criticize republican foreign policy. >> two quick things. one is, it's apples and oranges. that's just not a fair comparison. a fairer comparison would be what democrats did directly after 9/11. you know, on the 12th, you had statements by people like hillary clinton who at that time was then senator clinton and seen as a very partisan figure, who said we stand united behind the president. that's a leadership -- that's what leaders are supposed to do. the other part of this, which is now disturbing, is it's okay to sort of say that mistakes were made. you know, as people work in this industry, you know, we sort of have a responsibility to be care takers of this industry. when we just follow, you know, our parti

like the obama administration, we understand the importance of maintaining what we have.80% and the regional plan revenues are directed towards fix it first. this high level of investment continues a long-establish partnership or local and state dollars leveraged federal dollars. at the transportation authority over the last few months, we have acted to invest millions of dollars of the sales tax that we administer in a transit infrastructure, both in the current system to keep it in a state of good repair and also to enhance the system so that transit is prepared to take on its share of forecast growth in the near future which is quite significant. last week at the plans and programs committee, there was an approval+1t! sfmta to procure 90 40-foot motor coach of judges in -- buses in anticipation to the very good news we received today. we know from firsthand experience that replacing vehicles that are passed their useful life with new vehicles may be the single most important performance benefit we can offer survivors in terms of providing reliable service. in fact, in

are you surprised that the administration is insisting that the murder of a u.s. ambassador was the result of a spontaneous demonstration by a mob that eyewitnesses and intelligence sources entirely neutral on the issue, say, didn't happen? >> i'm not surprised by it because i think that our entire policy, and this isn't exclusively an obama administration problem but you think they have exacerbated it, our entire policy is based on a fiction that we, we have a threat that is basically constituted by a handful of violent extremists and that everyone else in the muslim world who we confront is more likely an ally than an enemy. lou: this has moved beyond illusion though. this is an administration saying to the american people something that is on its face not true. >> yes. lou: first, it was a result, a consequence of the actions in cairo in which our embassy's walls were scaled, the american flag taken down and then the murder of a u.s. ambassador which we now learn from intelligence sources in libya, again, eyewitnesses in libya, that this was an attack, an assas

on two occasions, the administration put forward an official statement.y ignored what had occurred in egypt. what is the reason for their? >> there isn't any reason. this is a complete breakdown of american policy. the embassy apparently not cleared by washington and not very much distinguishable from statements made in washington today. apologizing for this. nobody has seen this film that we are all talking about. lou: i've seen about 10 minutes of it. >> it was a pretext at best. it didn't happen on september 11 by coincidence. let's get to the real issue here. the government of egypt could've stopped those people from penetrating the embassy if they have had security guards and military around the fermenter. we knew enough this demonstration was coming in the government of egypt must have known that they let it happen. the government of egypt, and i think the government of libya were complicit in these incidents. lou: these charges of complicity, knowledge of plans that obviously resulted in the events of september 11 in cairo. the united states, as th

what did the administration know and when can they know it? >> john: issa is on the phone from his home state of georgia. what do you think of peter king's call for ambassador rice to resign? >> i think ambassador vice a talented lady who may be a fall person for administration. she would have only said what the administration confirmd that she could say and we know with from what mr. clapper said the dni director that they initially did think it was an unorganized gang and spontaneous mob but immediately learned facts that led them to believe it was a terrorist attack including some individuals affiliated with or directly responsible to al-qaeda. the issue when did the administration know and what did they know and did they protect or fail to protect chris stevens in his capacity. and you have to remember, geraldo, when the diary was uncovered, it was quoted as having an entry that said chris stevens wrote he said he was al-qaeda's number hit list and thought that his life was in danger. what we have asked for and hope we will get from the se

we have a weekly phone call with them, with the regional administrators with the deputy administrator. if there is any concern, problem, someone not listening to them, i have told them if they cannot resolve it to bring it to me. if someone does not think the report to the regional administrator, i certainly hope they do not think they did not report to me. that is what we've been doing to make sure we have clarity in the organization. >> the regional administrator in kansas city try to impact the situation. he was called to washington and asked to sign of loyalty oath, which was shocking to me that that would occur. he was tied to point out some of the problems, and he was called on the carpet. i was on a mission to see if we could rattle the cages. i am glad las vegas came along, because that rattled the entire structure, which needed to go. as time went on and i became more familiar, i was more and more surprised of the judgment calls being made. do you have any comments on the assault -- the calcification of middle management that really began to pull the curtains on progress of o

the obama administration is running a ad saying that the romney administration would be dangerous to women. you smirk? >> this is what politicians do when they don't have a good record. 23 million people struggling to find work. the poverty rate of women is the high nest a generation. president obama said if you pass the stimulus package, unemployment would never be above 8%. it's been above 8% 43 months. the president doesn't have a record to run on, so he is running a divisive campaign. hope and change is now divide and conquer. this is a political tactic to divide americans. >> greta: but you need the women's vote. that's a powerful vote. >> of course, we need the women's vote. >> greta: i understand that. but that's run against you. >> when i think of women's issues are i think of my mom and my wife and my daughter and the quality of education we are giving our children. i think about the mountain of debt that we are giving the next generation, which will guarantee they have a diminished future. i think about the poverty rate and the women who start businesses and employ people a

he's been critical of how the administration has handled the benghazi aftermath. we spoke earlier today. take a look. what do you make of the response by the administration in the early days, ambassador rice, and now what they're saying now, they're now saying it was a terrorist attack. the president diuse the word terror early on in the rose garden, but we heard from ambassador rice, who is saying link this to the video that's been released. what do you see as going on? >> i see a fundamental misunderstanding in the larger picture and then on the smaller picture. on the smaller picture, they were either incredibly naive or willfully deceiving the american people. i don't know which, but to think an attack of this nature with heavy weapons, mortars, and a very sophisticated direct fire and indirect fire, that somehow that could be the result of a spontaneous demonstration is just impossible for me to understand. >> let me just throw in a third option, though, which supporters of the administration would say, was, look, they want to be cautious about how they chara

not just, maybe not obama but the entire administration.are trying figure out how to walk back from it without looking like they jumped the gun. i don't know how they do that. >> bret: the president was asked about this today. do we have the sound bite? we don't have it yet. was asked about it in univision specifically. why wasn't your administration better prepared with more security? at the consulate? it was a long, long answer. he didn't ever answer the question. he came back to what we have seen over the last week, week-and-a-half is something we have seen in the past. offensive video. cartoon. directed at the prophet muhammad. came back to the video and said he is concerned about security an he redoubled effort around the world at embassy and consulates after that. what about that? >> i found his answer absolutely extraordinary. this is the president of the united states still complaining about the video. nobody believes it was about the video. beyond that the obama administration is running ads as we reported in pakistan, distancing t

bush administration. c.i.a., all the intel evidents. compilation together and still they drop the ball on this because they're more worried about diplomacy than the safety of people sevenning the country abroad. >> dana: possibly not just a safety and diplomacy but the politics. >> eric: there it is. >> dana: rice goes on the sunday shows. first, she is never out. you never see her. she goes out and says this is all the video, the information we have at the time. three days later we find out that is completely wrong. how does that happen? >> eric: honestly, dana, looks and smells and probably a coverup. the white house is covering up for what will be a terrorist attack on american soil and three reasons. they're all political. in the hours and the aftermath of the attack, president obama decided to go to vegas and pick up cam pape checks. number two, this isn't an attack in retaliation for 9/11. 9/11 was 11 years ago. this is attack in retaliation for bin laden killing and the victory lap that the obama a

the first is, you know, to be fair, 9/11 happened during the bush administration, the bush-cheney administration. so it's not as if people -- muslim radicals feared the united states during that period. not when they were killing thousands of american troops in iraq certainly. the larger point is that, you know, there's a tendency, especially seven weeks out from an election, to turn everything that happens in the world into an election issue. there are some very deep and troubling things going on in the middle east that have very little to do with what a president does or doesn't do. let's be fair about this. you have a complete upheaval in the middle east. you don't have american policy makers being able to shape the way muslims think about the world, about modernity, about the united states. so to blame the president for an attack on these embassies, i think, is a bit much. >> congressman, as a republican here, supporter of governor romney, is this american weakness that brought this on? is that the republican view? is that what the view of president romney would be? >> my view is it was a la

now an excuse for the administration. i think it's two-fold.hink hillary clinton, gets the fact when you have an ambassador murdered it's a national humiliation. i think president obama is too obtuse to figure that out. i think a successful attack before an election is terrible thing to happen to the administration. that is why you see the state department officials coming out. they keep blaming this on the video. here is what is so troubling to me. on the ground, al-qaeda in libya had better intelligence than we did. it's embarrassing. it's embarrassing to the administration we didn't have better intelligence. think about it. 400 people, rpgs, they knew that the ambassador was no longer in tripoli. then they knew he was at the consulate. then they knew he was moved from the consulate. they had all that intel and we did not. we failed. so it's an embarrassment. >> bob: what does obtuse mean? >> greg: when you ask it, you prove the point. here is the thing, who cares what caused what? it doesn't matter. it's terror no matter what. as an american

now you have the administration going after mitt romney. candidates as the middle east -- >> bob: he has a right to say that but he should say something that should be accurate. >> dana: the next time the media writes a story how they hate covering the campaign because they there is not enough substance we can run it over and over again. >> andrea: good point. keep it on file. israel is one of america's closest allies but president obama can't or won't make time to meet with the prime minister benjamin netanyahu later this month. was it a scheduling conflict or a snub? details when we comecolleagues." >> eric: the divide between the apologist in chief and the only true ally in the middle east, israel is widening and fast. prime minister netanyahu is getting restless waiting for clarity from president obama on what to do with regard to nuclear iran. >> the world tell israel wait, there is still time. wait for what? >> eric: some advice, mr. prime minister. if you are going to go, you best not wait for president obama's blessing. remember thi

it is the obama administration is. there's a clear difference between the two. one is attempting to reach out. the other is attempting to be muscular and strong and what the rest of the world -- >> i apologize. i do not have a specific number of the foreign affairs budget in the neighborhood of fifty billion which is before we spend dod. i tend to agree with mike and martin that it is hard to read what the actual differences would be between the obama ann romney administration. the difference is more one of rhetoric than action. the talk might be different but the actions would be pretty similar because so much policy is dictated by domestic politics and the events happening in the world but as they unfold who would have thought it just a few months before we went in to libya and took on that -- who would have thought we redoing anything in a no-fly zone? who saw the arabs spring coming until was right upon us? so much depends on world events. i don't think a change in administration will affect it. >> when a candidate

the embassy is the administration, the statement that came from the administration was a statement whichs akin to apology and i think was a severe miscalculation. >> you talked to them. what upside do they see here? >> that was a very strange moment. he was relitigating this very small thing in an announcement that had been put out the night before. before it was clear that the ambassador had been murdered, that three other embassy staffers had been murdered, that this was a coordinated assault, not some random bit of mob violence, and he's relitigating this, and this has become a much bigger story, and one that it's very hard to drag into presidential politics. andchi when i talk to republican presidential foreign policy hands this morning, what is he doing? there's always a tendency to jump into stories of this, when the reality isn't clear yet. it takes a while for this stuff to sort out. and the standard thing to do, reporters call you for comment, and staffers know you have to hold your fire and wait until you know what's going on. and romney last night that had this statement that

we taken up with the author of the best-selling book on the obama administration called the obama administration the amateur. from maine to maui, thousands of high school students across the country are getting in on the action by volunteering in their community. it's great, helping others, and it feels good, too. are you in? whoa! anyone can do it. all it takes is a little time. are you in? chris young: action teams of high school students are joining volunteers of america and major league baseball players to help train and inspire the next generation of volunteers. it's easy to start an action team at your school so you, too, can get in on the action. lou: tens of thousands of pakistan these turning a so-called the 11 to a violent, bloody, deadly mess. the "a-team" will be here to react. for more on that anti-american demonstration across much of the world the obama administration middle east policy and presidential election 46 days away. we are joined by other of the new york times best-seller, the amateur. i have to ask you, or will you be this weekend? >> number two. lou: all right. let's s

which is the obama administration do in response? >> well, they had an election in libya back in july. in that election, the muslim brotherhood came in and the solace is that we think are responsible for these attacks, is about one out of 80. so the libyan people have made their voice very clear. the problem is the militias in libya with all the guns and weapons were equipped while the united states led from behind to do nothing. something one of the lessons is when there is this kind of thing, we should be in there, helping our friends in this case establish law and order. the public reaction in libya, the killing of the ambassador is frankly very sympathetic to the united states. and i think we should be taking advantage of that. lou: we didn't like the results of the election in egypt, but they also had an election, they also had change direction, again from a direction that the united states is not particularly enamored with. nonetheless, they had changed the character of their government in the direction of the nation. what shou

we taken up with the author of the best-selling book on the obama administration called the obama administrationd the amateur. want to try to crack it? yeah, that's the way to do it! now we need a little bit more... a little bit more vanilla? this is great! [ male announcer ] at humana, we believe there's never been a better time to share your passions... because the results... are you having fun doing this? yeah. that's a very nice cake! [ male announcer ] well, you can't beat them. [ giggles ] ohh! you got something huh? whoa... [ male announcer ] humana understands the value of spending time together that's a lot of work getting that one in! let's go see the birdies. [ male announcer ] one on one, sharing what you know. let's do it grana. that's why humana agents will sit down with you, to listen and understand what's important to you. it's how we help you choose the right humana medicare plan for you. because when your medicare is taken care of, you can spend more time sharing your passions. wow. [ giggles ] [ male announcer ] with the people who matter most. i love you grandpa! i love you g

obama administration is. there is a clear difference. one attempts to reach out the other attempts to be muscular and strong. >> first of all, i apologize. i don't have the specific numbers but in the neighborhood of 50 billion. i tend to agree it is hard to read the actual differences between obama and romney that maybe more of rhetoric than action it would be similar because so much of foreign policy is not at internal domestic politics but who would have thought we would be doing anything? who saw the arab spring coming? vujacic depends on world events. >> when a candidate says something, the record is clear he can be held to that because quite often the candidate is very cautious what he is prepared to say. the suggestions repetition repetition, romney has been reasonably clear he will try to be much more aggressive with respect to iran than obama. making fun getting the hand slapped back but my gut feeling is the reality will dictate one or the other in the same way. i think it is fair to say if romney w

but let's take the administration position as being correct.you now have an al-qaeda that can seize targets of opportunities, that's agile, quick moving and creative, that's a much more dangerous al-qaeda than one operation that took weeks and weeks of laborious planning. the administration's position of what happened in benghazi or may have happened, goes to show the basic argument that al-qaeda is no longer a problem is even more wrong than otherwise thought. >> is it at all possible that the president has sort of a game face on and we have our navy seals or some of our special force the over there and that they are -- they have gone over and they are going to get the people who have done this an. that while -- and that he does not want to be perceived as having the terrorism disrupted our country but rather it's business as usual and there's an active investigation and that tomorrow we are going to get them? >> well, one can only hope that special operation the forces are in the field. but it doesn't look that way. once again, the administra

and the embassy is the administration, the statement that came from the administration was -- was a statement which is akin to apology and i think was a severe miscalculation. >> on capitol hill, honoring the heros, the american flag lowered to half staff in memories of the lives lost. good day. it is a somber day in washington and america around the world. flanked by secretary of state hillary clinton, president obama condemned the attack in benghazi that led to the death of four americans including the death of ambassador chris steven. >> we will not waiver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act and make no mistake justice will be done. >> joining me chief foreign correspondent richard engel in cairo ro and nicolas burns former ambassador to nato and professor at the harvard kennedy school. first to you, richard, you've been out there all day. tell me about what's happening in cairo right now and your recap of what sparked the attacks both in cairo and benghazi? >> i think it's important to differentiate between the two because they're very different k

so every administration since then, whether it was the clinton administration or the bush administration and even the beginning of the obama administration, recognized that work requirements could not be waived. there's plain language in the statute in section 407 that says the work requirement cannot be waived. well, here comes the obama administration through an information memorandum that now both g.a.o. and the congressional research service, really a rule -- and i would ask unanimous consent to place in the record both the letter of september 4 and the september 12 congressional research service memorandum both saying the administration action was a rule. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. camp: but now comes the administration saying we don't have to go to congress to change the law. even though congress voted on this in a bipartisan way and this was a critical piece of major legislation, we're just going to send an information memorandum and have unelected bureaucrats change the law of the land. well, people who sort of referee things like g.a.o. and c.r.s. said, hold

, via the administration. >> after the administration withdrew that statement, why did he have to double down the next morning after we knew the american ambassador and three other americans were killed? >> at the time the initial statement went out, we knew there had been violence. the embassy in cairo had reissued the statement via social networks. it was still a point of disagreement. >> the white house had distanced themselves by the next day from the cairo embassy statement. he was disavowing the statement too. he was getting a lot of criticism. i think it was fair to point out there were major differences between the administration and governor romney on our overall approach at the middle east, which was the nub of his criticism. >> do you have any criticism of the way the president has behaved, reacted since this crisis and the killing of the american ambassador has unfolded. deploying naval ships to libya and the statements he has made. >> you have to take a step back. we can get bogged down in the minute to minute developments and take a step back and say, what's going on in the

seven times in nine minutes obama referenceed the obama administration apologies for u.s.and principles. >> the statements were inappropriate. and in my view a disgracement statement on the part of the administration to apologize for american values. the statement that came from the administration was a statement which is akin to apology and i think severe miscalculation. the first response is not to say we stand by the comments that suggest there is something wrong with the right of free speech. >> romney initial rebuke prompted counterattack not from the obama administration but the obama campaign in chicago. which set in a statement, "we are shocked that at a time when the united states of america is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in libya, governor romney would choose to launch a political attack." reporters grilled romney with questions whether he turned too partisan, too soon. >> do you regret the tone at all given what we know now? >> do you regret having that statement come out so early? >> romney brushed back reporters noting that t

we think that's the first time we've heard that from administration officials. you say the way in which the mortars were used in this attack would right away lead to that conclusion. >> well, it's very hard to walk in mortars on a target and apparently as i hear, they were hit, the annex, very quickly by mortars so somebody had the exact coordinates, somebody knew how to fire mortars, direct fire, and i think that's what has the pentagon concerned that this was a military style attack and the people who did attack it knew what they were doing. and you know, in defense of the secretary of defense, the details are coming in very slowly simply because it's been difficult to get people out of the country. the debriefings have gone slowly and we can't put people on the ground because of the security situation. so the truth has come out very slowly, even inside our government. >> fran, a lot of people are being critical of the administration. to play devil's advocate here, it's one thing for politicians who are not part of the government to say -- or not part of the a

and the clinton administration. they took the regional political appointments that are the eyes and ears of congress and at this agency, and they basically put them out to past year and took away all of their power. and i ask both of you, and nobody ever said anything, no one ever realized this happened until all of the sudden we knew people were put in place they found they had an office with nobody reporting to them. they had no authority to do anything, so this woman in gsa in kansas city basically didn't have to listen to the regional administrators haven't been appointed to the political process whatsoever. no power. so is that a good idea? and why did no one ever said anything about that? because all it did was in fact muscle of the classified middle management of this agency, what i think of the the extent to congressional oversight spent i will take the first avenue at it. i actually agree with you there was substantial problems with the way that organizational changes have been made, and that's why i have b