if it's not ben rhodes, then it has to be somebody else. it's impossible for me to believe that ben rhodes didn't have some direction from somebody. i would have never had audacity to suggest something like this, which basically was a policy decision to put a cabinet member on the line, lying to the american people, put her out there and put her career on the line without actually having some sort of check-off from the higher ups in the white house. i never would have done that. >> that's exactly why i say i don't think ben rhodes made up this story. somebody told ben rhodes this was the true story. >> i find the most scandalous element of this from purely just a human poifer -- point of view is the fact that the secretary of state hillary clinton with the bodies of the dead lying in front of her and with the families there brought up the video and said a video with which he had nothing to do and then according to one of the family members when she went over to console that family member, she said we're going to get the guy who did the vide

and here's this e-mail, ben rhodes referencing the video in a political sense. now the white house is trying to tell us it has nothing to do with benghazi. >> seems to me like a lot of people are pointing fingers in a bunch of different directions. first you have people saying the cia did the talking points then mike morel says he did -- seems to me like jay carney has a new line of defense. when he's going to get peppered with questions about benghazi, that's to read the promos from the sunday talk shows, right? explain that. >> well, i saw an e-mail exchange with somebody at the white house that had a quote from our show on september 11th. they're going back to stuff in the early days when there was not a lot of information on the press side. what we were getting was from administration officials. they were telling us that it was all related to these protests and the video. what came out is that they knew through their internal chain that this attack was a terrorist attack that was well organized from the very beginning. greg hicks testified on the hill that h

how can you close the books on benghazi until you call ben rhodes. let's call him and have him explain this email. if it wasn't about the four dead americans, why did you mention we're going to bring people to justice? >> did speaker boehner change his life -- >> i hope so. the house has done a good job. i'm tired of five minutes of questions. i want a joint select committee so we can look at the cia the state department and dod as one unit and i want a professional investigative team to get to the bottom of this. >> you hear the critics, not only democrats, there are some republicans who say, okay, enough is enough. it's time to move on. we've got -- they have been up there. they have answered all kinds of our questions and we didn't get what we wanted to get. how do you respond to that? what is the end game here on this particular effort? >> 18 months after the attack not one person has been kurptd responsible for killing the dead americans. 18 months after the attack we finally get an email that shows the white house created a narrative completely

one in particular is the suggestion that ben rhodes came up with this on his own and then he wasn't even talking about benghazi but later in the email it's repeated and that subject line, benghazi, so i don't know if they think that we're really that stupid. i guess they do. and you do have to wonder where is the white house press corps and what have you done with them. the briefing did get a little more heated today and i think rightly so. when you go to the white house podium, you need to have better opposition research than your opponent, if you don't have it, then you are going to end up with another situation -- you can understand why people have little trust in government when they can't get answer a simple question. >> all roads lead to rhodes. >> it's interesting now as you pointed out in the green room, greg, usa has it above the fold. jonathan carl asking the question, asking the question over and over again. they start with the media matters. they say fox is so bias the, they keep worrying about benghazi, it was over. it shouldn't have been over. they should have been asking t

is it ben rhodes or someone even higher? >> karen? >> i do think the most damaging phrase in that email is to underscore it is not a failure in policy. you would assume at that moment they would be trying to determine whether it was a failure in policy. so, i think ben rhodes. >> i would actually be less concerned about failure in policy than the fact that the dead bodies weren't even buried at that time of americans. i mean, they are more worried about p.r. strategy and i would think for god's sake find out who did this. >> the reason failure in policy is important is because you want to make sure that you don't have other embassies, other places around the world that are similarly exposed. so i think that, you know, ben rhodes is probably going to be facing a lot of questions and potentially on the hill going forward. >> why, if the intelligence committee says or intelligence community cia says no video, and you have got ben rhodes who is saying that it's a p.r. strategy, not a policy failure and you go with the video at the same ti

at center of the developments, a incriminateing e-mail written by white house staffer ben rhodes white house constructing what was a act washed defense of their -- awkward defense of their words and actions in days following benghazi attack, white house claims there were two sets of talking points giveen to susan rice before she went on 5 sunday talk shows, and famously lead to the -- lied to the nation about what happened in benghazi, new white house ex plan nation comes a day after a freedom of information request by judicial watch produced that incriminateing e-mail. e-mail udateed september 14, with subject line reading, prep call with susan. states goal for her national tv appearances of quote, to underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video and not a broader failure of policy. press secretary jay carney today, struggled to attempt to persuade the white house press core this e-mail, dateed 3 days after the terrorist attack, was not even about benghazi. >> this is not about benghazi, it was about overall situation in the region, the muslim world, you saw protests

ben rhodes, welcome. as we just heard in that report, a number of the people who are occupying these buildings in eastern ukraine say they're not going to leave, they're not going to give them up. does that undercut the deal that was reached yesterday in geneva? >> we believe the russian government has a tremendous amount of influence with at least a portion of these protesters. we would like to see them use all their influence, their public statements, private comments to encourage these protesters to leave these buildings, to disarm. the ukrainian government is keeping its end of the bargain, took steps toward passing an amnesty law and we'll be watching this to see if the russians are using influence and if the protesters are pulling back. >> woodruff: even if some of the protesters listen to moscow, there are still others who say they're ukrainian and they don't respect the government in kiev and they're not budging, no matter what moscow tells them. >> what we see is actually the vast majority of the

and it deals with ben rhodes and his communication out from the white house itself. i have to tell you, judicial watch had to file a freedom of information request an go to court to get this. we in the united states congress issued a subpoena back in august that was not fulfilled. we got the same document at the same time. it's a problem. it's a real problem. >> we should remind everyone that ben rhodes was a communications specialist with this administration. wouldn't the administration know, congressman chaffetz, that through the freedom of information act that somebody was eventually going to get their hands on these e-mails? >> well, i have to believe the truth will eventually surface. but, remember, the white house saying they were not involved, they did not have these things. you have the president of the united states himself saying as new information is available, we would release it to the public. that's never been true. how president obama can do that, it's not true. with a duly issued subpoena, we've had roughly 3,200 new documents in just the last 30 days

ben rhodes was doing his job. i don't for one second think he dreamed this out of the air.there was either specific policy or political direction that said we wanted to make sure that the goal is that we focus onen this being an internet video causing the protest and that it's not a problem of broader foreign policy. i do not believe. >> which i should add in direct contradiction to what mike more morell, acting director of the cia said a month ago in a hearing which we are now hearing about 19 months later after there have been many opportunities for the white house to release this information and to provide these emails. it took a lawsuit. >> i think that the american people would have understood if the white house had said yes, of course, we were trying to protect the president. even if they had just said, this you know, after the election said well, maybe we shouldn't have tried to do that we were trying to help the president. i actually think that people probably would have forgiven them. they insisted that they had nothing to do pushing the video from the white house.

was it an overarching political strategy that was coming from the white house and from ben rhodes? >> no i can tell you what our mindset was at the time, which was enormous fear that these protests that were obviously the result of this video were spreading and becoming more violent and could lead to the death or injury of more of our people serving abroad. you know, i think we all need to step back and that there were millions of people protesting across the planet. there was no reason for us to believe that these individuals at benghazi weren't also upset by the video. if you read david kirpatrick's "new york times" story, his stringer interview people there told them that they were upset by the video. so this wasn't about politics. this was about trying to calm things down and protect our people abroad. >> there seems to be a lot of hue and cry over the fact that ben rhodes' a mail de-mail did h the nuance that was part of the cia guidance and also something echoed at the state department in a background briefing call with reporters before ambassador rice went on the sunday talk

ben rhodes' brother is david rhodes, the president of cbs where sheryl atkissson used to work.o keep this classified. they declassified it initially. yeah, you can look at this. then when they reallied the house oversight committee wanted it, they blacked out so much stuff t didn't make any sense. that's why judicial watch sued them. that's why we now know that it leads back to the white house. >> right. mike morell also involved there, saying, he was the deputy c.i.a. direct, i'll volunteer to go meet with hillary clinton to work out a message here because it looks too good for the c.i.a. because the c.i.a. knew this was dangerous and warned ahead of time and that they didn't wants to look basically too good and make the f.b.i. and administration look too bad. i feel bad for this guy, growingry hicks, who stood up and sounded the alarm and was the whistle blower and he's paid in his career. >> fox news has continued to cover this and we'll continue to do to. now a look at what else is making news. >> good morning. talk being a story in oklahoma. it could affect other states. e

we'll have the latest on both front with top white house foreign policy adviser ben rhodes. >> and democrats are banking on top names for their ticket in florida, including a former president's grandson, jason carter. and can the dynamic duo make a run in georgia. >> we got to focus on patriots day. boston's back, one year and six days after the deadly bombing that killed three onlookers near the finish line of the boston marathon. 36,000 runners will hit the streets for the 118th running of this great race. the field includes about 5,000 people who were on the course at the time of the attack but were unable to finish. >> it was important to come back this year to finish not only for myself but for everybody else. >> terrorism won't stop the running community and it won't stop boston. >> the first wave of runners, those whose mobility is impaired, they've already started. those using wheelchairs and hand psy cycles will go next, the elite females go off at 9:30 and then the elite male runners and then the first wave of the rest of the field go at 10:00 a.m. due to some restrictions from the

we also have for instance a memo to ben rhodes among others. there is information of a particular and congress. this is a response not only from the house intelligence committee but also the guidance we need to brief members and correct the record so clearly the administration wanted to use this for political purposes or at least to frame their nature of the debate. and then victoria newlin and finally i guess she says this has resolved all of my issues or is ms. conway mentioned those of my leadership and the question is who is she talking about? is she talking about the seventh floor and who on the seventh floor? then we go to an e-mail from general petraeus. you quoted general petraeus at the very end. i i've never known anyone who is a leader of any department or agency that was more controlling than general petraeus and yet he says frankly this is certainly not what device chamber ruppersberger was hoping to get. why was general petraeus so passive? why was he sitting back the way he was. then you accompanied susan rice to see senator grah

. ♪ >> we wanted to follow-up on the interview judy did last night with ben rhodes about the crisis in. rhodes called on russia to use its influence to get pro-russian demonstrators to leave government buildings they've been occupying. we're joined by timothy frye from columbia university. right now it seems russia is using its influence towcp( do opposite. >> yeah, we're not seeing the demonstrators leave buildings. they're actually flouting this agreement that was signed in geneva saying we're not bound by it, we didn't sign it. >> and there's also reports now of troops kind of mysterious troops, similar to the ones that were in crimea, russia initially defied that those were russian troops. now wewid see those troops in eastern ukraine and president putin is denying that as well. >> we see a large build-up of russian troops on the border. important to keep in mind that the demonstrations came only after there was this large build-up of troops on the other side of the border. so i imagine that pro-russian militias are looking for cues from moscow for their actions as well as trying

one was sent by white house communications adviser ben rhodes who is the brother of cbs news s president david rhodes. it lists one goal as, quote, to underscore that these protests are rooted in an inter234ed video and not a broader failure of policy. four americans were killed in the attack by militants on the u.s. consulate including ambassador christopher stevens. initially they linked the attack to the reaction to an anti-islam video rather than an islam militant. the white house said it was just stating the facts known at the time. the white house claims these e-mails are the smoking gun that shows the administration was trying to shield the president during the 2012 election. and you can see more on the benghazi e-mails coming up on "cbs this morning." >>> now, the state of oklahoma is investigating a bon. execution. oklahoma was using a new drug combination to execute clayton lockett. after ten minutes prison officials declared him unconscious, but sometime after he started writhing, clenching his teeth, and lifted his 4 eed the execution was stopped, but he eventually died of a

then you go to cbs news, ben rhodes' brother is director of cbs news. you can smile and say this is a conspiracy. isolated, i might agree with you. but the totality is why people have questions. you can answer whatever you want. at what time were you told that general petraeus was under investigation? were you aware of the day the talking points were being prepared? >> i do not remember the timing of my awareness of that investigation. >> that's pretty significant. the director of the cia, you are number two, he is under investigation for criminal charges. it would seem to me that you should have been told about that immediately by the white house or someone in the administration in the event you had to take over at a moment's notice. and how did that influence his decision on the talking points? >> i did not know anything about what was going on with general petraeus until the day before he resigned. >> no one told you anything. nobody in the white house said anything to you. >> no. >> you had no knowledge. >> no, sir. >> when you accompanied susan ric

at center of the developments, a incriminateing e-mail written by white house staffer ben rhodes whiteting what was a act washed defense of their -- awkward defense of their words and actions in days following benghazi attack, white house claims there were two sets of talking points giveen to susan rice before she went on 5 sunday talk shows, and famously lead to the -- lied to the nation about what happened in benghazi, new white house ex

lisa monaco was head of the department of justice's national security division and ben rhodes was thenal security council staff. >> so during any of those conversations with anyone on that list, no one, including the spokesperson for the national security council indicated that they needed to be changes or any other, for any reason whatsoever? >> so, i never spoke to any of these people. we only sent them an email. the changes that were suggested by the national security staff was at that point, at that point, they had made two suggestions earlier in the process before i was even aware that the talking points existed. but at that point in the process, the only change that the national security staff suggested was a change suggested by ben rhodes to change the word, consulate, to diplomatic post and he suggested that change for accuracy purposes since it was technically not a consulate. that is the only change that was suggested at that time to the talking points. >> did anyone tell you that the talking points were going to be used for susan rice? >> no, sir. >> and the ambassador at t

would be happy to work within deputy chief of staff to hillary clinton jake sullivan and rhodes, ben rhodes, that is, to develop appropriate talking points, unquote. the documents obtained by jirnl watch also contained -- judicial watch also contained numerous emails sent on the assault of the benghazi facility. the dramatic emails described the assault as an attack. just as state department number two person in libya said, chris stevens described it, we're under attack. there was nothing about a video . the american people were duped right before the election, as as the intent. september 11, back to the article, september 11, 2012, 6:41 p.m., senior advisor to susan rice, quote, as reported the benghazi compound came under attack and it took a bit of time for the annex colleagues to secure it. one of our colleagues was killed. ambassador chris stevens who was visiting benghazi this week is missing. they're looking for him. further down, it notes how much material is blacked out in so . ny of the emails judicial watch president said, quote, now we know the obama white house's chief concern

. >> the president of cbs news the last couple years has been david rhodes and his brother ben rhodes is a speaker at the white house. do you think it had any effect on their interest or lack of interest on stories involving the administration. >> in one or more conversations that david and i had, he was very much in tune with, he told me at least, the types of stories that i do, the types of journalism he thought we should be doing, and i said we had a meeting of the minds on that that didn't translate to the broadcasts. >> is there a pattern you detected if you were to pitch a story about republicans that was troubling that it would get rejected, or if you pictured a story about democrats, it would get supported? in general there are patterns of recent stories being embraced. if they were seen as being positive to government. >> and is that -- is that after 2009 or is that at all times, including when a republican was in the white house? >> i don't remember having political troubles per se. you're asking me a question i really have to think hard about and i don't have the time to go

. >> well, now, deputy national security adviser ben rhodes is responding saying, quote, reports of jewsegister by pro-russian forces in eastern ukraine are chilling, outrageous and must be universally condemned. >>> now to a fox news exclusive. republicans are stepping up their demands for more documents that could reveal direct involvement by the white house in the botched rollout of obamacare. house oversight committee chair darrell issa delivering a letter this morning, president obama's chief white house counsel stating, senior white house officials as well as the president appear to have been far more personally involved in decision making related to healthcare.gov than the white house previously represented. documents obtained by the committee show the significant involvement of senior white house officials in the rollout of healthcare.gov. joining me now with exclusive new details, our chief white house correspondent, ed henry. what are they exactly looking for now with this letter that's being sent? >> the point is, you'll remember at the beginning of all this after the rollout,

. >> thank you, ben rhodes. >> thank you. >>> on the ground in kiev is congressman royce. you know the situation on the ground. do you think the white house is doing enough right now? >> reporter: well, i >> well i do not. i think the main point that they are missing that has put putin in the driver's seat is he controls oil and gas and has a monopoly on it. we could upset it about announcing a national policy in the united states that we're going to ship a tremendous amount of gas and oil and yes it would take a while to get up to speed but if we sent the message that we were going to help collapse russia's holdover the region by destabilizing the markets -- remember, it's 70% of russia's exports. it's 52% of what they need to support their military and their government and you've got to strike putin at a point which will really weaken him and energy security here in the region is a big concern in eastern europe. we need to move decisively on that point. >> congressman, do you agree with -- >> and my hope -- yeah? go ahead. >> do you agree with senators corker that we nee

. >> ben rhodes who claims that part of what's needed to reinvigorate the president's strategy in asia show up. it can't be that simple, can it? where do you see things in that part of the world with regards to moamerican foreign policy? >> i think what ben was trying to say they missed the asia trip during the downfall and the president cited he couldn't go. this is a complicated trip because the president was trying to sort of have a big announcement on that trade deal. it's not going to upon that. congressional democrats are not supporting it. it will happen next year if it happens at all. what the president is trying to do today, you saw him trying to make news when he came out with a strong japanese affirmation security alliance in the face of escalating tensions between japan and china. that was a big step to reassure the japanese and the japanese actually felt very good about it. the president stood up there with prime minister abe and said it very strongly and he made a point to say we don't want the tensions to lead to escalation with military force between the two countries b

lisa monaco was head of the department of justice's national security division and ben rhodes was the spokesperson for the national security council staff. >> so during any of those conversations with anyone on that list no one including the spokesperson for the national security council indicated that they needed to be changes for any other -- for any reason whatsoever? >> so i never spoke to any of these people. we only sent them an e-mail. the changes that were suggested by the national security staff was at that point -- at that point they had made two suggestions earlier in the process bmb i was even aware that the talking points xisted. but at that point in the process the only change that the national security staff suggested was a change that was suggested by ben rhodes to change the word counslat to diplomatic post and he suggested that change for accuracy purposes since it was technically not a consulate. that was the only change that was suggested at that time to the talking points. >> did anyone tell you that the talking points were going to be used for susan rice? >> no,

the memo written by the communications guy ben rhodes was sent three days after the 9/11 attack thatled ambassador chris stevens and three other americans. the memo woe was written to prep ambassador susan rice on what to say to the media the instructions are these, quote: the goal to underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video and not a broader failure or policy. by the way bebb rhodes is now a deputy white house security advisor. there is no longer any doubt that the white house was pushing this spontaneous uprising theory and playing down the organized terror angle. no longer any doubt they did it president obama should have told the nation the truth. but he did not. that's one of the reasons his poll numbers are slipping. some americans no longer trust him. fox news chief white house ed henry asked him about his policy named the obama doctrine. >> what you think the obama doctrine is in terms of what your guiding principle is on all of these crises and how you answer those critics who say they think the doctrine is weakness? >> well, ed, i would -- i doubt that

ben rhodes is the national security adviser to president obama and joins me from the white house. what does the white house know? what are we hearing from the ground about the issue of anti-semitism? >> we're very concerned about the incidents of anti-semitism, we through the embassy, did confirm that these flyers are being distributed in donetsk. we have left behind the anti-semitism, where it should stay in history. we issued a strong statement yesterday this is grotesque and disgusting and has no place in today's world. we want russia and other countries to condemn this type of anti-semitism. thus far all we've seen is the distribution of these flyers as your correspondent found we haven't been able to assign who was responsible for distributing them. we'll stay on top of them as we do with anti-semitism anywhere in the world. >> we know that the president has authority for individual sanctions for sanctions against the cronies and banks but the larger sanctions, the sanctions against the mining industry and financial industry, that would require getting germany and france and

ben rhodes said this morning that new sanctions with rich sha will come early next week.an emergency meeting on monday to discuss the sanctions. this comes as the pentagon says russian fighter jets have flown into air space and that they are amping up operations on one of the tensest borders. joining me in donetsk is jim ma se maceda. does it feel like the preparations for war on the ground? >> reporter: hi, alex. good to be with you. it does. you certainly feel there are preparations for some conflict. both sides, pro russian and pro ukrainian are beefing up their check points. we're seeing the ukrainian military strategy for dealing with the pro russian obligations for towns. the ukrainian special forces late yesterday setting up a massive concrete roadblock five miles north of sloviensk. that's the key strong hold for pro russian militants. there are similar roadblocks to the south, southeast, southwest. rather than launch a major attack and risk not only many casualties but also risk giving president putin an excuse to send in the russian military over the border, the

what they point to is here's one of them from ben rhodes, deputy national security council official whont on the talk show to explain what happened, the goal was to, quote, underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video, not a broader failure of policy. they had other information, julie, at that time, people at the state department and cia saying this was not an indigenous protest but a calculated planned terrorist attack. when republicans say gotcha, do they have a point? >> they're going to try to make this point to cast it as a smoking gun. for the white house, one of the biggest questions is why were these e-mails we're getting now under a foyer request. >> a lawsuit. a group had to file a lawsuit. >> why were the e-mails not released earlier? this is going to stretch the story out further. if you can just get all of your information out once, you can make the case for your position more strongly instead of dragging this out and giving republicans more ammunition. >> even some of house republican leadership had been telling chairman darrell issa, enough. you've spent

ben rhodes is a deputy national security advisor at the white house and just so happens that his brotherrhodes is the president of cbs news. so you can't ignore those coincidences as well when it comes to how the coverage is being made. and you know, it is really unfair that she is getting jerked around in this way of them just not straight up saying we're not airing the story instead of dragging her out. she left because she is better than that she has a lot more credibility and her stories deserve to be on air. martha: jessica, what do you think? >> i think possibly if she had come forth now and there was some sort of smoking gun o, youe had where she could pinpoint it and say they didn't run this in particular and because of that they have an done a disjustice to viewers and news consumers to people in general i think that would be a different situation. i think we would see something where certainly you could pinpoint an instance but this is more just been a situation where she was saying they weren't running her stories. maybe they felt there was stronger news that day, or during th

. >> ben rhodes, the president's deputy national security adviser told jake tapper earlier today that idea, said it could escalate the situation. do you support the u.s. providing lethal military equipment, weapons in effect, to ukrai ukraine? >> i would be skeptical right now only because what happened last week. i don't know how much the russians have infiltrated ukraine. i don't know how much it has been infiltrated by the russians. estonia, lithuania, czech republic, any of the countries along the perimeter of ukraine and russia. >> those countries you mentioned are nato allies. ukraine is not a nato ally. >> listen, if i thought it would work, i'd say, we should give them the military hardware. my only concern now is how much control ukrainian government has over its military. last week when the ukrainian army went in with their tanks, they surrendered in a matter of minute and turned them over. that's my concerns who in ukraine is with us and who's with the russians? >> talk about the drone strikes. based on what you know, you a member of the intelligence committee, house homela

one e-mail was send from ben rhodes, the brother of cbs news president david rhodes. it was addressed to white house officials, including spokesman jay carney who would help prethen u.n. ambassador susan rice to present the administration response. it listed several goals for rice. among them, to underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video and not a broader failure of policy. also to reinforce the president and administration's strength. rice on all the sunday interview shows linked the consulate assault to protests against an anti-islam video, not a terrorist operation. >> we do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned. >> reporter: benghazi went on to become a flash point during a fierce election year. the white house insisted it was simply stating the facts known at the time. >> there are no unanswered questions about ambassador rice's appearance on sunday shows. >> reporter: facing further scrutiny then secretary of state hillary clinton strongly defended both rice and the white house. >>

there was a quote from ben rhodes for the president who said the white house only had so much bandwidthce process. it's worried about three things -- a nuclear deal with iran, what is vladimir putin going to do in ukraine and i think afghanistan. this is a historic, a very positive vote today in afghanistan. and there will be a new president that obama should engage with. he doesn't want afghanistan falling apart as his presidency comes to an end. >> let's talk about afghanistan here for a second. you spent years in that region as well. voter turnout there, quite high today. about 60%, despite taliban threats. the overwhelming majority, still men voting. but a significant number of women voted today in afghanistan as well. how good of a sign is it -- these elections, how good of a sign are they for the post-karzai regime there, the post-karzai afghanistan? >> they're a great sign of public sentiment. 60% turnout in afghanistan. that's higher than the turnout in the united states in the 2012 election. this is a vote that the taliban said they would kill anyone who voted. the other positi

we asked ben rhodes about that yesterday at the white house, and he said he doesn't think it would makenow because russia has a bigger military than ukraine, even if they had the additional weapons. >> we'll stay tuned for that. what else do you have coming up on the show? >> we have live reports from all over the world. we have south korea, we have washington state, president obama will be touching down there, meeting with families from that natural disaster in oso, washington. also we'll be looking into the plane, and also a special earth day trip to the south pole that i know you're going to want to watch. the images are spectacular. we did this interview a while ago. >> not at the south pole? >> i was here. the person we were interviewing was in the south pole. there was literally a 30-second delay. >> oh, my goodness. >> we've edited that down. i don't know if you've tried to do an interview in the south pole. there's a little bit of a delay. >> pause, pause, pause. great seeing you in boston yesterday. thank you so much. >>> we'll see him at the top of the hour for "the lead." >>>

the public diplomat in chief in the government today is ben rhodes. he is a magnificent, thoughtful person. he is also doing 100,000 things at the same time. but there's just not yet a public diploma process that feeds into the policymaking process that is organized or structured. it's all ad hoc and that's something that we just need to develop. so i think strengthening the role of the pd, deptive assistant secretaries, is an important step in this process. >> your opinions on the white house's current messaging with regards to the ever strengthening and aggressive sanctions against russia, and how you feel the white house is either addressing or not addressing the comments in the media which specifically hit on the fact that those sanctions reduce u.s. business involvement in russia and thereby decrease our possible leverage in the future. >> i actually think -- as i said in my remarks, i think so far the white house has been pretty effective. in the sense that we haven't let rhetoric get ahead of what we believe we're actually capable of doing. the

where is it asking from recreation but why is ben rhodes makkah political appointee involved at all? >> this is a good question. it's a very good question. first of all it was very important that we coordinated the talking points with the rest of the intelligence community because this was an intelligence community judgment that i mentioned earlier. we can give you something about an analytic judgment without cordoning with those people who helped come to that judgment. that's number one. number two we have to provided to the fbi and the department of justice because they had just opened an investigation into the death of four americans and it's very important that we not say anything in an unclassified session and it was very important that we not say anything in an unclassified session to put that investigation at risk. number three we thought it important to to share those talking points with the state department which had just lost officers and number four we were getting talking points to a congressional committee to talk about a very important national security issue and it is

we'll have the latest on both front with top white house foreign policy adviser ben rhodes. >> and democratsthe dynamic duo make a run in georgia. >> we got to focus on patriots day. bo

in the e-mail obtained by a conservative watchdog group, deputy advisor ben rhodes lists goals for susan rice to explain the attack and protest occurring across the middle east that week for the american public. one other headlines to show you overseas. sectarian violence whites iraq process for change. talking about the vote going on in iraq today. right now, we'll be talking about that vote and what it means for that country and what it means for the united states later in today's "washington journal." but we have about 10 minutes left to answer this question, continue the discussion in our forum here. race relations in the u.s. -- how far have we come? joel is from sherman oaks, california. joe, good morning. caller: hi, good morning. host: go ahead, joe. caller: ok. i woke up early. so you're lucky to have me today. as usual, america shooting itself in its feet along with c-span. sorry to say, but it's true. we have a population that live like it's in the kindergarten and it doesn't make sense to me. blacks, whites, we're not these colors. i'm not black and blacks are not black. they