s ben feller on a question from the luncheon between members such as john boehner and mitch mcconnell, and nancy pelosi and harry reid, and also joining the luncheon today, vice president joe biden. on capitol hill lawmakers are hearing the testimony today on the safety of cruise ships, a hearing prompted by the deadly january 13th accident on the "costa concordia" which hit a killed 25 people after hitting a reef. some are still missed and believed dead. and several people cited incompetency on the parts of the captain and the crew. a couple from massachusetts were on board. they were there to celebrate their wedding anniversary. they escaped on a lifeboat and they were there when the chaos began. some questions on all of this today. we'll hear part of this in the next hour. we'll get respective from the hill newspaper. rick larson, he's a democrat from washington and a member of the maritime subcommittee which held the hearing. >> thank you for the testimony, and sorry about your experience. i'm having nothing to do with it, i'm embarrassed by what happened. it is shocking what happ

gwen: he was answering ben feller from the associated press there. but was the damage already done, julianna? >> yes, because mitt romney's campaign is latching on to it and will continue to use it as a way to undercut one of the president's key strength, which is foreign policy, to show that he's naive when it comes to talks with leaders on the world stage and even white house officials would admit the president should not have been having this conversation when reporters were walking into the room but they're not that worried because mitt romney went a little too far in trying to push back against this and in an interview with cnn went out and said that russia is the number one geopolitical foe of the united states and then the next day you have dmitry medvedev essentially dressing romney down on the world stage saying, hey, look at your watch, it's not 1970 -- you're likening al qaeda to russia? we should invade moscow? gwen: how bizarre, you get on the plane and travel halfway across the world to cover a nuclear summit and instead we have the spe

let me start with the associated press's, ben feller. >> thanks, jay. two questions on iran and israel. there is a report from iranian state television, quoting the top leader, the ayatollah, as praising president obama about his comments on a "window of opportunity" for diplomacy. and the quote is, "this expression is a good word. this is a wise remark indicating taking distance from illusion." i'm wondering if the white house sees this as a positive sign and sees it as credible. >> ben, as you know, the president's policy toward iran is focused in a very clear-eyed way on iranian behavior, certainly not on rhetoric of any kind. we are determined to prevent iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. and iran continues to violate its obligations, and has demonstrated -- and has not yet demonstrated the peaceful intent of its nuclear program. and that's why we have, over the past three years, led the effort to organize the international community in a broad consensus effort to pressure iran, to isolate iran, to impose sanctions on iran that, in an ever-increas