we're going to take a closer look at the evolution of arne duncan after the break. colorado is the hot spot for the second amendment rights after lawmakers moved a bill that would hold gun owners and gun makers criminally liable if their weapons are used to commit a crime. judge napolitano joins us on what could become one of the most dramatic gun laws in the country. today a senator from montana meets with the ambassador from singapore over the death of an american engineer. we brought you the story and friday. police overseas in singapore said this guy, he's an american working for a singaporen company, he killed himself, it's suicide, but his family says he was murdered, after complaining that his company was using him to provide the chinese with sensitive military secrets. >> it was a typewritten note that they said they got off from his computer and the note started by thanking ime for giving him every opportunity to succeed and he was sorry he did not meet their expectations. that was my first sense of joy as a mother to know, my son did not write this note an

well, apparently arne duncan did not get it.is blog today, blaming school job cuts even though those happened four years ago. scott brown. wow. everything you can blame on the sequester. by the way, everything bad going forward, too? >> i know arne duncan, play basketball with him at the local y, a great athlete, a good guy, have a lot of respect for him in this case i have to respectfully disagree. the scare tactics need to stop, and if he is so concerned he needs to call up the president and say give me the transfer authority and allow me to make the cuts in the department of education shy can do my job. the president said he wants the republicans to take the fall and that wrong. >> but, scott, he was out there saying that there were going to be cuts and named the school district, i believe -- >> a lot of people saying those things. >> hold on. when they were -- the school district was contacted they said, no, there weren't any cuts. any cuts had nothing too do with sequester. >> so part of the whole way they're trying to scar

but listen -- stuart: you don't think -- you don't want to put some pressure on secretary arne duncan assistants or janitors or how about the 82 teacher improvement programs that we have, why don't you put pressure to spread that pain to non-essential areas? why are you resisting that? >> we don't actually resist it, stuart. we put pressure on them all the time to actually spend money wisely. what i am saying to you is that the money right now that's going to cut schools, let me give you one example, in philadelphia, a teacher who already has seven or eight more kids in her class this year, she's going to lose the people that actually help kids do reading intervention. stuart: i've got it, ms. weingarten, but i don't understand why that teacher can't do without a janitor, for six months. i don't understand that. >> well, i think that if you actually want to make sure that schools are places that are healthy, you want to make sure you have the people -- stuart: what i'm coming away with from this is you really don't want to spread the pain. you want the pain to be inflicted, so you can

take arne duncan. >> yes. >> he's a smart guy, decent education. >> yes. >> not bad. why is he caving into this thing? why would ray lahood say what he's saying? his own inspector general told them there were 100 zombie air towers that should've been taken down years ago and they're still standing and in some cases still staffed out. and we do not need that money. where's a ray lahood? what's wrong with him? >> these cabinet secretaries are doing what they're supposed to be doing, which is go out and be mouthpieces for the administration. when george bush was president, your former boss, our former president when they ran around scaring the living hell out of the country out of this terrorist attack and this terrorist attack and if we don't fund up and do the department of homeland security et cetera, et cetera and scaring voting for tax cuts, the whole world was going to fall down. i think there's plenty of blame and plenty of politics to be put out there on this. i don't blame these secretaries for doing what they're doing. my problem with this is this, they voted -

there was some fact checking washington post blew the whistle on arne duncan's exaggeration and it wasn't all terrible. >> jon: is there any evidence that they're out on a charm offensive with the republicans. >> or 180 degree reverse course and taking them all out to dinner. yes, i agree with rich that glenn kesseler of "the washington post" handing out pinochios to the white house like candy. and even a post story white house seeks new money for imf. we can't afford the white house tours and the white house is asking for 65 billion dollars for the international monetary fund and as snyder said, talk about awkward timing. the first word of the story. >> jon: kimberly strassel, the wall street journal columnist pointed out 27 million dollars on a program in north africa that includes pottery making. >> yes, well, we can always do that and look at some silly sounding program in the foreign aid budget, which is a minuscule part of the budget. i mean, let's look a little closer at the pentagon and here again, this notion that the president has no choice, he's just got to cut across the board

and potentially have sections on president obama or arne duncan and at one point i was presenting to the adviser's fee of a fellowship i had including alex horowitz which came afterwards and he thought that was a stupid idea because people and experiences in new orleans were so compelling and interesting on their own so i settled on the idea of structuring the book around three schools with one person pre-eminence in each, lori, aiden and gerald win all of whom i met at different times in different ways. since writing this book was a journey for me i wanted to talk about what i learned over the course of reporting and writing it apart from the fact that it would make a terrible feature. the first is what do i feel extremists and absolutist on both part of the conversation form other issues dominate the debate but their voices don't really capture needs and desires of those attending and working in the schools and i covered education for long enough when i started working on the book to some degree. i was amazed the extent to which ideals and aspirations of many families and front-lin

clinton back then and they might have kind of gotten ahead of their skis in terms of pushing out arne duncan education secretary, and janet napolitano and letting the prisoners go and so on like that. but i believe the alternative media, conservative media did a pretty good job setting it up. jim garrity national review writes a thing, and this thing will be 2% shorter because of this and then proceeded to under hashtag sequester tales, funny tweets including one from jonah goldberg, joking, it wasn't until i ate my neighbor's pancreas that the-- >> is that why the president decided to appear before the press corps. i think so, when the white house calls this the media treatment of this the fiscal equivalent of clubbing a baby seal, you know you've perhaps a bit of -- a lot of as president, he has basically said i'm going to blame the republicans for this and they are going to take the political heat and that's going to help me in 2014. i think what i haven't seen enough of is media writing about the political repercussions of this. we know about the fiscal repercussions and not who is going

arne duncan couldn't back up a similar claim that he made about teachers getting pink slips. so how do you respond to critics who say the administration is engaging in scare tactics? >> you know, first of all, those capitol janitors will not get as much overtime. i'm sure they think less pay they're taking home does hurt but i think the real issue is that this is, as the president said, a slow grind. when this sequester goes off, yes, it's not going to hurt as much on day one but, again, every independent economist agrees, it is going to cost our economy 750,000 jobs just as our economy has a chance to take off. george, you could bring ceo after ceo on your show who would tell you that this type of uncertainty and dysfunction in washington is forcing them to hold back projects that they would be doing that would be creating jobs. they're worried it's going to hurt their small business suppliers and as -- and my belief is that as this pain starts to gradually spread to communities affected by military spending, to children who need mental health services, to people who care ab

. >> reporter: turns out the schools say that's premature and today, arne duncan softened the word into "maybe." >> tens of thousands of teachers will potentially lose their jobs. >> reporter: at this white house event highlighting defense contractor furloughs, even the workers had doubts. >> i don't think, personally, that my job is going to be one of the ones at risk. >> reporter: skepticism amplified by the independent mayor of the nation's largest city, an obama supporter. >> i live in that world. i mean, come on. let's get serious here. >> reporter: is the administration losing credibility by overstating the crisis? in an exclusive interview with abc news today, homeland security secretary janet napolitano said no. it's all coming, just not tomorrow. and nothing that you warned about was crying wolf? >> people need to know that lines are going to end up being longer. they need to be able to plan that way. >> reporter: but she did admit her own department's release of low risk undocumented immigrants from detention centers to save money for the sequestration was a badly timed surpri

. >> the way arne duncan said it was go to be and not the way janet napolitano said it would we or ray la hood. >> ed did it drive you contracts the next day we turned over $250 million to muslim brotherhood? >> that's got to hurt. where are are our priorities? what kind of country are we running sneer and then the bold-faced lies, the panic about the sequestration, it's awful. if this is what politics is today, who wantonizes part of it. >> people are going to be fewer lowed and laid off. and the thing about the muslim brotherhood. they gave it the government of egypt. they've been giving the bills for a long time. >> janitors can't bet fade put send 250 municipal. >> to the mb. >> jodi arias returns to the stand after breaking down during cross-examination last week. we'll show you what happened today. and guess who else returned to a courtroom? case ya -- casey anthony. anthony, arias, coming up. >> day 26 in the trial of accused murderer jodi arias, back on the witness stand for the 14th day. charged with kill herring lover travis alexander. she pleaded self conversation. prosecuto

president obama is sending out cab nat officials saying there will be pink slips for teachers, and then arne duncan to backtrack. an awkward time for the obama administration, going to be a slow-moving catastrophe and they're trying to limit the impact policy-wise, but politically it would help them if there is a disruption. >> neil: that could still happen and this is a slow, grinding workout, as janet napolitano said. but if it doesn't materialize soon i wonder if they can come back weeks later and say, well, told you so. >> i think it's going to have to be a pretty big event, whether it's a big catastrophe they can prove that is because of the sequester, and has to affect everyday americans, not just federal employees. the administration put out a memo today saying that there will be furloughs, will start in april, but also those employees are eligible for unemployment compensation. so, i just think it's going to have to affect people in their everyday lies in order for congress to do anything to restore cuts. >> what about the maneuvering the president has with the dippers dinners and lurches a

take, for example, our education secretary arne duncan double downing, might be triple-downing on thedespite a controversy that has dogged him all week after reporters fact checked some of his earlier claims and found them to be not true. now, we'll start here with secretary duncan last sunday. go through the middle of the week and end with what he said today. watch. >> there are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, getting noticed that can't come back this fall. >> we're confident that the teachers are getting pink slips that you said. >> i know that district, the district they had an earlier notification than most so the county in west virginia, but not the vast majority of them will be rolling out over the next two months. >> and earlier this week, on a couple of occasions you said that there are teachers who are already being laid off bus of the sequester. are you prepared to say now that that was an exaggeration on your part? >> really, really clear on the comments what i said was that teachers were getting notices and that the district we talked about, 110 teachers

arne duncan said he may have misspoke when he said teachers were already losing jobs. >> when i said pink slips, that was probably the wrong word. you should have use job elimination. i should have been clear there. secondly, when i said impact on teachers, you should have said impact on educators. >> this morning in a new cbs poll, 53% surveyed say they will personally be affected by the cuts. 18% said they want to see cuts, but 63 said they want to see the cuts without the sequester. only 13% want no cuts at all. when it comes to the political fallout of the all this, more americans would blame republicans in congress, 38%. but there's plenty of blame to go around, 33% would blame the president and congressional democrats. so you see why the white house wanted too pull up stakes. keeping sequester funds in place but giving those agencies more flexibility to decide what programs that will seeth cuts. senate democrats may add other measures to try to cushion the blow of the cuts but neither side is looking for a real confrontation here. meanwhile, the white house is trying to move on

for instance, arne duncan said three times once to reporters last thursday, again last sunday on "facend then again in the white house briefing room on tuesday that pink slips literally are going out as we speak, and by the third time he said it, you know, people were asking well, where, and he mentioned a specific school district in west virginia. well, it took one phone call by the "washington post" to that district to find out that no search pink slips are going out. now, yes, education is going to be squeezed, and it's already been hit in almost every school district across this country already by spending cuts, but the fact is that most of these cuts are not going to be felt until next fall, and between now and then a lot of school districts are going to have to figure out how they are going to make adjustment. i mean, the one good bit of news is that state and local tax revenues are going up a bit thanks to the economic recovery. that could give them a little bit of breathing room, but what is just not true is the kind of specificity that the administration talks about in these n

"washington post" had a great front-page story the other day, arne duncan who said, "there are literally now teachers who reting gore are getting pink slips. little investigation that is not the case." if the press had put in, say, 10% of the effort that was investigating beyonce's lip syncing to the actual effect of these budget cuts. >>> when we come back, mitt and ann romney's first interview. we'll look at the chris wallace sit down in just a moment. (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities. it's not what you think. it's a phoenix with 4 wheels. it's a hawk with night vision goggles. it's marching to the beat of a different drum. and where beauty meets brains. it's big ideas with smaller footprints. and knowing there's always more in the world to see. it's the all-new lincoln mkz. out for drinks, eats. i have very well fitting dentures. i like to eat a lot of fruits. love them all. the seal i get with the super poligrip free keeps the seeds from getting up underneath. even well-fitting dentures let in food

arne duncan walked back his comments. did the white house overplay their hand? >> no, i think people were clear they weren't going to happen overnight. we wouldn't see them in the first week, but over time. all the impacts are wael really. the republican party is obsessed about white house tourists. if you look at the 6:00 news, they are talking about people getting furloughed from jobs, layoff notices, kids getting kicked out of head starts. those are real exaimpacts. we're going to create fewer jobs because of this. 750,000 jobs this year. economic growth will be reduced. there were a bunch of estimates that came out today all because of the sequester. >> you mention ed the white houe tours chrks have got an lot of press. you mentioned the other things. obviously most people haven't felt it yet. and the white house tours have become a big issue and talking point. . this week it was brought up repeatedly. here's a little touch of it. >> mr. president, maybe we could have cut the robotic squirrel before we went to white house tours. >> now he's decided to shut d

remember, arne duncan we'll fire teachers in west virginia and close the white house for tours, not forurs. we're going to release detainees. i think it's part of this comet maelstrom, controversy, trying to embarrass congress for the sequester and to the credit of the american people, they didn't fall for it. and now they're having to explain why they did this when nobody accepts the explanation we had no choice. nobody accepts that. >> greta: how many were released? >> a total of 2,600. >> greta: and what are the most serious crimes some are suspected of? >> if you've ever sat with someone who's been killed or family member been killed by a repeat drunk driver, i think releasing those drunk drivers is pretty big. aggravated felons. >> greta: what is that, different places means different things. >> could be something serious like a major drug offense. >> greta: armed robbery? >> it could be. i don't think in fairness, i don't know one of these four are, but randy forbes from virginia asked how many had gang affiliations? the director didn't have any idea. >> did they give you notice t

another four for arne duncan's claim that teachers had already gotten pink slips. i know, i know, he's apologized you, but this is a rant for tv's sake. poll lit fax rated another claim by the president that federal prosecutors will have to let criminals go as mostly false writing that obama is exaggerating. as for the times, bill keller says obama is ultimately to blame for the sequester. despite spending a full week in campaign hysteria. even our own tom brokaw on this show yesterday gave the president in hindsight this advice. >> i think the president by my lights at least spent too much time in the last two weeks campaigning. he ought to have been maybe at camp david and said to boehner and his team and members of the republican side on the senate side bring the leadership up here. let's spend five days showing the public that we are interested in trying to make a heroic effort to get a deal here. >> okay. i'm almost done but you have to love this just a little bit if you're me. we have stewart, "snl," "the washington post," "the new york times" all with me. i'

mentioned the decision to release illegal immigrants before the sequester happened and you had arne duncanetting four pinnochios on his claim that teachers had already gotten pink slips because of the sequest sequester. do you think there's a negative backlash effect against the president or democrats for this sort of political grand standing on the sequester. >> yeah. that was definitely on duncan's part seemed careless, sloppy. you know, i have no reason to think he was dishonest but shouldn't have said it if he wasn't sure it had to do with the sequester and the issue the white house is wrestling with. the president's tone today seemed to be saying, well yeah, we won't fall a cliff. not the end of the world. this is a dumb thing but it's not going to turn our lives upside down. markedly different tone than the sunday shows the last week and i think that they haven't been entirely consistent in the message and may confuse people and the big risk for them here is that, again, as i said a minute ago and alluding to it, the sequester unfolds and people don't notice the big hit in the daily

i mean, arne duncan, the education secretary. he was caught in a lie and the president said we're going to cut janitors. and here is napolitano scaring people about what's going to happen at airports, guess what, none of which has happened and you can watch rand paul, by the way, the filibuster continues. >> we are already seeing the effects of some of the ports of entry, the big airports, for example. some of us had very long lines this weekend. sequestration, it's like a rolling stone. it keeps picking up speed as it goes downhill. we could see a lot of of missed connections. average wait times to clear customs can increase by a significant percentage. >> we will not be able to pay tsa workers overtime. i'm not trying to alarm you. it's just doing the math. >> sean: they've lied about all of this, the predictions of doom and gloom. >> right. >> sean: and now they want to inflict the maximum amount of pain by this memo on the american people. >> that's exactly right, sean. let me tell you the only thing that givers me some encou

. >> arne duncan said, oh, they're going to lose jobs at the school in virginia.e called the school and they said it didn't have to do with the sequester. they couldn't come up with examples. stephen, republicans are congratulating themselves. they said, look, you signed a deal on cuts. a republican congressman said i think friday is an important day that shows we're finally willing to stand and fight for conservative principles and force washington to start living within its means and that will be a big victory. once people start feeling this, though, that may not be a victory. >> well, but republicans have to show that they're willing to cut the budget. this is $50 billion out of a $1 trillion deficit. if we can't do this. if we say this is too hard, we can't cut $50 billion, how are we going to get the other $950 billion reduced? i just see this as a baby step i understand actually as a conservative, i think if republicans back down, a lot of conservative voters are going to say there's no difference between these two parties. either of them wants to cut the bu

arne duncan, the secretary of education, said on "face the nation" last sunday literally teachers now are getting pink slips, notices they can't come back this fall. and then some fact checking came out to prove that wasn't the case. "the washington post" on thursday reporting that sequester spin gets ahead of reality. when he was pressed in a white house briefing wednesday to name an example, duncan came up with one school district in west virginia, and he acknowledged whether it's all sequester related, i don't know. as it turns out it isn't. doesn't it hurt the white house's credibility, the president's own credibility, to make the claims have them turn out to not be true? >> david, i think we are having a debate about what the impact is in the first couple of days. nobody ever suggested that this harmful sequester which the speaker himself would be devastating to national security was going to have all its impact in the first few days. it is a slow grind. but make no mistake about it. you can't cut $42 billion from defense in seven months and not hurt jobs, veterans, and, you know

consider education secretary arne duncan who now says he misspoke when he claimed last week that teachers already receiving pink slips. >> i want to apologize for not being as clear as i should have been. when i said pink slips, i should have used job eliminations. >> what is the administration doing to make sure these numbers are not hiked? might that undercut your message? >> here's the thing, if you disagree with the cbo and with outside economic analysts who say that up to three quarters of a million jobs will be lost, you should make that case. there's no way to do what the sequester calls for and not create these negative effects. >> americans may not be feeling the punch, but there are plenty of spending cut punch lines. over the weekend, the "s" in "snl," stood for sequester. >> we no longer have full body scanners at the security lines so we are asking everyone to take a photo down the front of their pants and just text that to us. >> with washington becoming a joke, it's no surprise both sides appear willing to pass a measure that would avoid a government shutdown at the end of

. >> with arne duncan, secretary duncan, that was really bad.ns out that was-- >> right. >> greta: does it turn out they're incompetent and don't know the impact of their policies, which is really bad or they're deliberately misleading the american people about the policies. take your pick, both are lousy. >> my sense is they're looking for examples that makes it seem very bad and that they've tried to dramaticize that and the examples haven't come true and may over time. there may be teachers who lose their jobs and janitors that have cuts in pay, but those things haven't happened yet. you've seen the white house have to walk back some of the claims. and their credibility, they have to be making the case that this is real, that the government needs this funding that 85 billion dollars is a cut too far and therefore, you have to tell your members of congress to do something about it. >> greta: but the president of the united states is saying these things that are wrong, and getting four pinochios. press secretary jay carney says that people are

why is arne duncan the education secretary telling teachers are laid off only to find out from the washingtont that's false. homeland security secretary janet napolitano says some airports are seeing impacts from the spending changes with passengers experiencing delays, she says, because the tsa is cutting back. and ms. napolitano also warns that these things could get worse going forward. and we shall see. and in the middle of all of those warnings that some republicans are trying to remind people, that the administration does have choices when it comes to spending. according to alabama senator jeff sessions, the president's recent golf weekend with tiger woods cost taxpayers more than a million dollars, or enough money to save 341 federal workers from going on furlough. the golfing gathering happened last month during the president's long holiday weekend at a luxury, florida resort. the president and first lady also took some heat on spending taxpayer money when the first lady went out to aspen, colorado on a ski trip and all viewed by some as extravagant when the country was having the spe

thank you very much. >> my pleasure. >>> , education secretary arne duncan and health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius talk about the importance of early education programs. then, the u.s. supreme court or argument challenging provisions of the 1965 voting rights act. after that, job growth and the economy. >> imagine if we are in front of a group of 20-year-old people. a butterfly in indonesia that is in danger of extinction. raise your hands those of you who would like to help it, saving the butterfly in indonesia, and he would find among those 20-years old, you will find some. then go and ask the same group, who wants to join me in a political party? who wants to join the republican party or the democrat party? you would see it quite a few would be willing to dedicate their time and efforts and passions in joining a political party, and i think political party is need to modernize. they need to become more attractive to young people, to young professionals, because political parties are, at their essence, the idea that you could have democracy without strong political pa

last couple of months, president obama and all of his mignonses, ray lahood, january napolitano, arne duncan going to shut down a hundred towers for air traffic control, planes could be falling out of the sky. kids may not get head start breakfast or education. elderly may not get fed and eboley and food inspectors may not do their jobs. and then the president back tracks and well, maybe not the armageddon we thought it was going to be, and the next day, sign over 250 million bucks over to the muslim brotherhood, certainly don't like israel one of our allies. stuart: i don't get it after all of this talk of armageddon, here it comes, boys, and yet, a quarter of a billion which would pay for how many head starts and how many teachers and the rest of it, goes to it egypt and the muslim brotherhood. >> not only that, president obama stood in front of the american people and said, janitors in this building are going to get laid off. he was wrong. >> and "the washington post" has four pinochios for a lot of things that president obama promises on the way in, in fact, it's not on the way. i don't

i mean, you had arne duncan, who is the secretary of education, kind after reasonable guy, not a whackoration to put his credibility on the line, and tell the american people to the television camera, we're going to have to layoff teachers, in fact, already now. it's not true. >> clayton: and they were already being laid off, nothing to do with the sequestration. >> alisyn: and crying wolf in that way, does it have a long-term effect on their credibility? and when janet napolitano says, yes, national security will be affected and arne duncan says people are pink-slipped. what happens to credibility? >> so unnecessary, nobody is for it, you can make a straight forward honest cahe ca members, supposed to be running the executive branch of government. they're not jay carney, they're real people and obama made them into just spokesmen and liars. >> clayton: you're right, not only marshalled cabinet members they marshalled the e-mail list and the campaign the president thinks perhaps the american people on his side and he may be right, but bill o'reilly has a different take and thinks he ove

arne duncan came out, and said teachers were being furniture load in a west virginia county.y of his meeting with congressional leaders said janitors on capitol hill were going to be having their hours cut. that was proven falls. bill: they said that will not be the case. you're starting to see these articles written about a credibility issue for the president. if it doesn't happen, what is your view of that and how that affects him? >> you know, i don't really understand why they are making up stories about people losing their jobs bike the janitors, when in fact people are going to lose their jobs. the reality is it's not necessarily going to be an apocalypse but it's going to be bad. if cbo says it could be 700, 750,000 people losing their jobs in a very fragile economy. that is not a minor thing. and so by exaggerating it it actually detracts from the message which is that this is actually serous. bill: that whole point about layoffs, you wonder why it has to be that way. because we're spending all this money, 3.5 trillion this year, i mean somewhere you can go in there a

when you get your cabinet secretaries on television like arne duncan in education to tell things thatto make a political point i think you lose the public and the poll numbers reflect that. he went too far. martha: alan did he go too far. >> you have a bunch of polls that say on immigration the people are with the president. martha: we're tacking about in terms of the sequester issue. we've seen the president kind of back peddle on this a little bit. it was all doom and gloom and armageddon, then the day before he said you might not feel it right away. there was some acknowledgment that they sold this in the wrong way. >> over time he said there was going to be pain for a lot of people, including lines at airports and veterans not getting checks it wasn't going to happen day one. martha: the president does have leverage at his control to make that less painful, to make cuts that are less painful. the president does have some power over that that he opted not to use. >> he's offered republicans $980 billion worth of cuts. he's offered 2.30 cents in cuts for every dollar raised in taxes

officials out there to scare the american people, whether it's janet napolitano at homeland on tsa or arne duncanit's wrong and people know it's wrong . the fact is their president should be minimizing the disruption to the individual lives of americans instead of adding to it and creating crisis and panic. look, obama care was funded was it not on $500 billion worth of cuts, waste, fraud and abuse. you mean to say, mr. president is that all the waste there is in a $3.5 trillion budget? you couldn't find $58 billion to get us over this crisis? martha, remember in the next couple of weeks we'll have the next crisis, a continuing resolution because the president doesn't have a budget. martha: brad, thank you. thank you very much. always good to have you with us. we'll see where this goes, folks. bill: how do you think that meeting is going right about now. doughnuts, pizza? martha: last time they had subway sandwiches or something. let's hope they are actually working. bill: jon scott standing by, "happening now" rolls our way what is going on. jon: the first of those meet innings a longtime when t

. >> reporter: turns out that the schools say that's premature and arne duncan softened the words totheir jobs. >> reporter: at this white house event, highlighting defense contractor furloughs, even the workers had doubts. >> i don't think personally that my job is going to be one of the ones at risk. >> reporter: skepticism amplified by the independent mayor of the nation's largest city and obama supporter. >> i live in that world. i mean, come on, let's get serious here. >> reporter: is the administration losing credibility by overstating the crisis? in an exclusive interview with abc news, homeland security secretary janet napolitano said no. >> nothing that you warned about was crying wolf? >> people need to know that lines will be longer and they need to plan that way. >> reporter: but she did admit her own department's release of low-risk, undocumented immigrants from detention centers to save money for the sequestration was a badly timed surprise to her. >> do i wish that this all hadn't been done all of a sudden so that people weren't surprised by it? of course. >> reporter:

how the white house could just make it seem as if they had gone after him after a briefing with arne duncan. it was found to be misleading. that is fact checking going on on both sides. the question that the media has is that we know what the strategy is. it is not changed from the fiscal cliff talks but it was more confusing for some people to understand what the republican position was. it seems to be no new tax revenues under any circumstances. if both sides talk about compromise, if that is their position, then there will be no compromise. i believe that most american people probably see it that way, too. the polling shows that the american people support a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. host: john quotes the president from a year and a half ago -- guest: i think the president was passing along a piece of conventional beltway wisdom. that turns out not to be the case. we can lose sight of how inefficient our congress can actually be. it came to pass. the question of who is responsible for this is not really a question that anybody in the country really cares about. they

washington post" issued four pinocchios with regard to false claims made by education secretary arne duncant the sequester's pwabgts -- impacts on teachers jobs. the national journal said the white house's tendency to exaggerate the cuts on teachers' jobs backfired. and "politico," i quote again, for all the hype, spend and blame, exchange over the across-the-board cuts, the reality is they don't mean the sudden economic collapse of america. end quote. mr. president, it's important to be -- to see the sequester in its overall context. and all the hype associated with this could be analogous to the hype we had about the weather. everybody expected we would have the big blizzard, the big pwhreuz -- blizzard of 2013 and it never materialized. all the gloom and doom of the sequester have not amounted to much. washington does need to tighten spending, have less of the appetite than it does to take more of the taxpayers' money and spend it on things that i think most taxpayers view to be not really necessary. when you talk about a 2.4% reduction in overall federal spending, most americans, when t

on friday come education secretary arne duncan and kathleen sebelius visited an elementary school in tacoma park, md. a and they talked about investing in early childhood education and the automatic spending cuts that went into effect friday. the comments are about 30 minutes. [applause] >> this school where present so much of what we want the country be like, and i get to visit three schools, struggling schools, but the school has a high poverty rate, as many as 35 different languages spoken so a baby united nations. we ask them, do they like coming to school, and they say yes. challenges of poverty, assimilating children, and they come to an environment where they can be successful. board members, superintendents, teachers, staff -- it is fun to be here. thank you for the hard work you do every single day. i this is a topic that we love to talk about, and government at all levels, federal, state, and local, investing in the education of our nation's teachers, our children. this is one of the best investments we can make collectively. we are thrilled at about the president's landmar

even before the sequester took effect, education secretary arne duncan declared that schoolteachers weregetting pink slips. a few days later, he had to walk those comments back. he said he was referring to a single school in west virginia. but when "the washington post" contacted the superintendent of that school, he said that not one teacher, not one teacher has gotten a pink slip because of the sequester. then president obama suggested that all of the people who keep the capitol clean would be suffering a pay cut, but that wasn't true either, according to capitol superintendent carlos elias. we have been repeatedly told that the sequester would trigger drastic layoffs of federal workers, yet on monday alone, the federal government posted literally hundreds of job advertisements. finally, just yesterday when asked to provide evidence for the claim that 70,000 children would be denied access to head start because of the sequester, the white house had no details. while the president has been out there playing chicken little, members of the congress have been waiting for the white house to

earlier today, arne duncan and castling sibelius warned of the impacts of the spending cuts on early chocolate education, child care services, and public services. >> this school represents so much of what we want the country to be like, and i get to visit great schools, struggling schools, but this school is a high poverty rate, 35 different anchorages spoken, but children are doing well. we ask them, do they like coming to school, and they say yes. challenges of poverty, assimilating children, and they come to an environment where they can be successful. board members, superintendents, teachers, staff, it is fun to be here. the key for the hard work. this is a topic that we love to talk about, and government at all levels, federal, state, and local, investing in the education of our nation's teachers, our children. this is one of the best investments we can make collectively. we are thrilled at about the president's landmark plan to create new partnerships with states to provide universal access to high-quality preschool for all four-year-olds. it will provide the biggest expansion

consider education secretary arne duncan who now says he misspoke when he claimed last week teachers were already receiving pink slips. >> i want to apologize for not being as clear as i should have been. when i said pink slips, that was probably the wrong word. i should have used job eliminations. >> reporter: what is the administration doing to make sure these numbers are not hyped? because might that undercut your message? >> here's the thing, if you disagree with the cbo and with outside economic analysts who say that up to three quarters of a million jobs will be lost, well, you should make that case. there's no way to do what the sequester calls for and not create these negative effects. >> reporter: americans may not be feeling the punch but there are plenty of spending cut punch lines. over the weekend, the "s" in "snl" stood for "sequester." >> we no longer have full body scanners so we're asking everyone to take a picture down their pants and text it to us. >> reporter: both sides appear not willing to pass a measure that will avoid a government shutdown at the end of the m