are you going to call susan rice, ambassador rice, and ben rhodes to testify? >> well, susan rice has to be called. she's never been called before a committee of congress to explain what role she played in the drafting or the giving of the white house talking points. ben rhodes, as i read that memo again today, and i have not discussed it with mr. cummings. he and i have to consult with each other before any decisions are made. but that memo was pretty important to our understanding of how a false narrative was perpetrated to our fellow citizens. >> you want him. >> i want to talk to everybody who has access to relevant information. >> do you expect to call former secretary of state hillary clinton? >> i don't see how you can have any definitive accounting of benghazi without talking to the secretary of state at the time. >> so we expect hearings from january we'll see those three, at least they'll be requested their presence? >> we won't do those three in january. i need the remainder of the document production from the state department before i can interview

most of the discussions took place in canada led by security adviser ben rhodes. that was when castro and obama shook hands at mandela's memorial service last year. the pope stepped in sending letters to obama and castro to resolve the two sides. mr. obama and raul castro hammered out the deal yesterday in the phone call. the first contact since the cuban revolution more than 50 years ago. at the white house hanukkah celebration, the president talked about the phone call with alan gross. >> i spoke to him on his flight. he said he was willing to interrupt his corn beef sandwich to talk to me. i told me he has mustard in his mustache. i couldn't actually see it. needless to say, he was thrilled. he landed at andrews in a plane marked the united states of america. he will get the medical attention he needs. he is back where he belongs, in america, with his family. home for hanukkah. >> reporter: a senior official said former leader fidel castro was not involved with the deal. as for a presidential trip, the president is not ruling one out. he was in china last month

considering that it was going on for 18 months -- don't forget one of the secret negotiators was ben rhodes, a speechwriter who reports to dan pfeiffer. i would think he knew. there have been times when i have -- this was a clever way that he danced around the question. he was trying to provide an answer that would give no quote for any story. i'm not justifying it, but i understand his -- >> i am not sure, but isn't ben rhodes deputy to the national security council? >> he is a speechwriter, deputy to the national security advisor. dan pfeiffer is head of the communications, maybe there is a dotted line connection there. obviously, speechwriters would be vetted by the communications director. i do not know specifically whether dan pfeiffer knew or not. my suspicion is that he would have known. he gave an answer that was designed to make absolutely no news. >> you gave a gepetto award, which is, what? >> a true and correct fact. >> you gave it to senator john barrasso, republican from wyoming. >> you will have to remind me. >> how many do you do a year? >> four or five. i gave one to obama.

for example, in the white house, ben rhodes, he's the white house top adviser. brother david is the head of cbs news for god sake. we see this with -- when he came out with this thing, the press ignored it. nbc took three, four days to even acknowledge it. ideology is the enemy of truth and ideology is the enemy of with a predetermined attitude about something and then try to make sure this story when they write it mches with their it ideology. >> the story about this high school kid making 72 million bucks in his lunch hour, first, the red flags are immense. you can't be a trader in high school, right? >> well, you can be a trader i think making $72 million is quite difficult. i disagree with your basic premise. i think journalism has gotten better because no longer can these reporters spin a story. i mean, you couldn't have nbc faking the exploding gas tanks today. you've g ts my of been more information instantly available to everybody. we're living in the days of m maxheadroom and journalism is starting to thrive. >> okay, fair enough -- >> benghazi, huh? >>

2013 with most of the decisions happening in canada and led by deputy national security adviser ben rhodes. those wheels were in motion when the president and raul castro shook hands at nelson mandela's memorial service last december, but one key sticking point remained. the imprisonment of alan gross in cuba. a major obstacle stood in our way, the wrongful imprisonment in cuba of the u.s. citizen and u.s.aid subcontractor alan gross for five years. >> last march president obama found a pivotal player to help broker a deal, pope francis. they discussed cuba at the vatican, something president obama did not disclose when asked by cnn. >> in terms of the meeting with his holiness, pope francis, we had a wide-ranging discussion. >> earlier this year the pope kept the conversation going sending letters to president obama and raul castro. then in october, the vatican welcomed officials from the u.s. and cuba to push the talks forward. >> translator: i want to thank and recognize the support of the vatican. the president had the bipartisan support of senators patrick leahy and jeff blake and con

do you know someone by the name of ben rhodes? >> i don't know ben rhodes personally. know the position he was fulfilling. >> i don't know him either, but there was a memo three days after four of our fellow americans were killed in benghazi. and i will skip over goal number 1 of his communications memo -- actually, i won't. it says to convey the u.s. is doing everything we can to protect our people in our facilities. it just struck me, if you were doing everything you could, we would not have had 50 separate recommendations after he wrote that memo and this now the second hearing to make sure that those recommendations were implemented. but i'm going to skip over that goal to get to the second goal. the second goal, secretary starr, was to underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video and not a broader failure of policy. so, i'm going to skip over the video part of that for now and get to the second clause, the dependent clause in that sentence. not a broader failure of policy. how can we judge whether or not a policy has failed or succeeded if no one

ben rhodes and rickardo zuniga med with officials in canada in june 13, leading to talks with top catholic officials in the vatican in october. in a 45-minute phone call with castro from the oval office tuesday, president obama finalized the release of gross and a prisoner swap. it was the first substantive phone conversation between a u.s. president and cuban leader since the cuban revolution in 1959. the u.s. released three members of a spy network known as the cuban 5. in exchange castro released an unnamed yiewben national to served 20 years in jail for working as a u.s. spy. >> this man whose sacrifice only known to a few provided america with the information to arrest the cuban agents transferred to cuba today as well as other spice in the united states. >> reporter: the u.s. will view cub cue. u.s. credit and debit cards will soon be accepted there. in havana, castro acknowledged the historic breakthrough. he said the progress made in our exchanges proves that it is possible to find solutions to many problems. the u.s. will build an embassy in avenue nay and the administration is li

white house advisers ben rhodes and ricardo zuniga, seen here conferring in the oval office, met secretly with cuban officials in ottawa, canada, in june 2013. a series of talks led to a final meeting with top catholic officials at the vatican in october. in a 45-minute phone call with castro from the oval office tuesday, president obama finalized the release of gross and a prisoner swap. it was the first substantive phone conversation between a u.s. president and a cuban leader since the cuban revolution in 1959. the u.s. released three members of a spy network known as "the cuban five." in exchange, the castro regime released an unnamed cuban national who had served 20 years in jail for working as a u.s. spy. >> this man, whose sacrifice has been known to only a few, provided america with the information that allowed us to arrest a network of cuban agents that included the men transferred to cuba today, as well as other spies in the united states. >> reporter: the u.s. will now review cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. cuban americans will be able to send more money the

> the secret talks started in 2013, with most of the discussions happening in canada and led by ben rhodeseels were in motion when the president and raul castro shook hands at nelson mandela's memorial service last december. but one key sticking point remained -- the imprisonment of alan gross in cuba. >> a major obstacle stood in our way. the wrongful imprisonment in cuba of a u.s. citizen and u.s. a.i.d. subcontractor alan gross for dpooif years. >> last march, president obama found a pivotal player to help broker the deal, pope francis. they discussed cuba at the vatican, something mr. obama not disclose when asked by cnn. what were his concerns? >> in terms of the meeting with his holiness pope francis, we had a wide-ranging discussion. >> earlier this year, the pope kept the conversation going. then in october, the vatican welcomed officials from the u.s. and cuba to push the talks forward. >> i want to thank and recognize the support of the vatican. >> the president had the bipartisan support of patrick leahy and jeff flake who flew to cuba to bring gross home. but cuban officials ar

officials say most of the discussions took place in canada led by security adviser ben rhodes.s were in motion when obama met raul castro in south africa last year. one key sticking point is alan gross. the pope stepped in sending letters to obama and castro urging both sides to resolve the issue of gross' status. then officials were welcome back to rome in october. then mr. obama and castro hammered out the deal in the phone call yesterday, the first presidential contact since the cuban revolution more than 50 years ago. at the white house at the hanukkah celebration, the president talked about his conversation with alan gross. >> i spoke to him on his flight. he said he was willing to interrupt his corn beef sandwich to talk to me. i told him he had mustard in his mustache. i couldn't actually see him. needless to say, he was thrilled and he landed at andrews in a plane marked the united states of america. he will be getting the medical attention he needs. he is back where he belongs in america with his family. >> reporter: a senior official said cuba's former leader, fidel c

president obama tapped these two guys, ben rhodes, deputy national security adviser and ricardo zuniga from the national security council and in secret they were the two who made this overture to the cuban government and started these talks. they started a weird travel schedule where the two of them would fly to ottawa or sometimes to toronto. they flew commercial so it wouldn't seem like they were there doing any official government business. cuban officials from their president's office would then also fly up to canada in a low-profile super secret way to engage in these meetings. the canadian government hosted seven of these meetings. and again, further interest here. the canadians were hosting all of these talks. they were having them happen on canadian soil. helping keep them secret. but the canadian government itself did not participate in the talks at all. it was in canada but just the u.s. and cuba. a very small number of very high ranking presidential advisers on each side. the only other entity involved at all was the pope. president obama, you might remember, he went to the

administration officials say most of these were in canada and led by deputy national security advisor ben rhodes and the wheels were in motion, we should point out, when the president and fidel castro shook hands in south africa. one key sticking point remain and that was the imprisonment of alan gross in kuba and earlier this year, pope francis stepped in and urged these leaders to push the talks forward. the vatican welcomed officials to rome just last october. all of this happening, of course, with nobody really knowing about this except for the parties involved and as you said, mr. obama and raul castro hammered this out in the conversation last night. >> to what extent can congress stall this if not stop it altogether? >> reporter: congress is not as divided as it once was. the votes are not there to override the presidential veto, if they force the president's hand. of course, he would veto it and probably not enough votes to override it. marco rubio said he would block any ambassador to cuba. the president is determined to put one there and wants to starve the administration of any kind o

i know trey gowdy doesn't think it's over, leading that select committee, and somebody like ben rhodes, a political advisor, still hasn't answered the hard questions about why emails he wrote led to the manipulation of talking points. the talking points are still the -- we haven't asked a lot. it's all a big part. the coverup is where there's so much time and so much evidence that they knew early on what it was that the select committee is going to focus in on a lot of that, and they're still there, and there's still people to be asked. >> the fascinating things is they don't just call up fox news. that's the fascinating thing to mention here. they're calling a cross-section of people. 70% who aren't seeing it that much more in other media outlets, but it's amazing. tliz still details. >> must see tv. have a great weekend. >> thank you for come. >> investigators following up new leads in the death of that teen that we told you about a couple of days ago. set on fire in mississippi. will her cell phone tell them who did it? >> holiday shopping causing a lot of stress. who do you think g

-cuba talks started in june 2013 with most of the discussions happening in canada and led by ben rhodeswheels were in motion when the president and raul castro shook hands at nelson mandela's memorial service last december. but one key sticking point remained. the imprisonment of alan gross in cuba. >> a major obstacle stood in our way. the wrongful imprisonment in cuba of a u.s. citizen and u.s. aid subcontractor alan gross for five years. >> reporter: last march the president found a pivotal player to help broker the deal, pope francis. they discussed cuba at the vatican, something mr. obama did not disclose when asked by cnn. >> what were his concerns? >> in terms of the meeting with his holiness, pope francis, we had a wide-ranging discussion. >> reporter: this year the pope kept the conversation going sending letters to president obama and raul castro. in october the vatican welcomed to push the talks forward. >> i want to thank and recognize the support of the vatican. >> the pope, who celebrated his 78th birthday today with a mass celebration is also the first latin american lead

do you know someone by the name of ben rhodes? >> i don't know ben rhodes personally. i know the position he was fulfilling. >> i don't know him either, but there was a memo three days after four of our fellow americans were killed in benghazi. and i will skip over goal number 1 of his communications memo -- actually, i won't. it says to convey the u.s. is doing everything we can to protect our people in our facilities. it just struck me, if you were doing everything you could, we would not have had 50 separate recommendations after he wrote that memo and this now the second hearing to make sure that those recommendations were implemented. but i'm going to skip over that goal to get to the second goal. the second goal, secretary starr, was to underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video and not a broader failure of policy. so, i'm going to skip over the video part of that for now and get to the second clause, the dependent clause in that sentence. not a broader failure of policy. how can we judge whether or not a policy has failed or succeeded if no o

/cuba talks started in june of 2013 with most happening in canada and led by ben rhodes. in motion when the president and raul castro shook hands at nelson mandela's funeral last year. but one key sticking point remained. the imprisonment of alan gross in cuba. >> a major obstacle stood in our way, the wrongful imprisonment of a u.s. subcontractor for five years. >> reporter: last march he found a pivotal player to help broker the deal, pope francis. they discussed cuba at the vatican, something mr. obama did not disclose when asked by cnn. >> in terms of the meeting with his holiness pope francis, we had a wide-ranging discussion. >> reporter: earlier the pope kept the conversation going sending letters to president obama and raul castro and in october they welcomed officials to push the talks forward. >> translator: i want to thank and support the support of the vat ran. >> reporter: chris holland flew to cuba to bring him home. they're fiercely opposed to the deal. from bob menendez to senator marco rubio. >> this policy contradiction is absurd and it is disgraceful fo

the deputy national security adviser, ben rhodes, along with other administration officials have beenorking on this for months. apparently throughout this entire process, pope francis was involved. pope francis sending letters to both president obama and cuban leader raul castro last fall urging them to make this happen. wolf, i was traveling with the president back in april earlier this year when the president went to the vatican, met with pope francis. i asked president obama about his meeting with pope francis. he did not divulge the two leaders talked about cuba. but, in fact, according to senior administration officials, during that meeting, the pope and president obama did talk about this initiative with respect to normalizing relations with cuba. so this has been going on for months and months and ended today with what is really objectively speaking a blockbuster diplomatic agreement for this administration. i think the timing of this is very interesting, wolf, in that it happened after the midterms as the senate foreign relations committee chairman, bob menendez, a cuban ameri

do you know someone by the name of ben rhodes? >> i don't know ben rhodes personally. know the position he was fulfilling. >> i don't know him either, but there was a memo three days after four of our fellow americans were killed in benghazi. and i will skip over goal number 1 of his communications memo -- actually, i won't. it says to convey the u.s. is doing everything we can to protect our people in our facilities. it just struck me, if you were doing everything you could, we would not have had 50 separate recommendations after he wrote that memo and this now the second hearing to make sure that those recommendations were implemented. but i'm going to skip over that goal to get to the second goal. the second goal, secretary starr, was to underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video and not a broader failure of policy. so, i'm going to skip over the video part of that for now and get to the second clause, the dependent clause in that sentence. not a broader failure of policy. how can we judge whether or not a policy has failed or succeeded if no one

our saying beforehand that ben rhodes told me in the first year of the administration, i keep reading about rising powers. i was at the copenhagen summit where obama meant -- happened to run into serious problems with the chinese and the indians. they said they did not look like rising powers to me, they look like real powers. that part is different. even though there are lots of french or british german diplomats worried about this. europe.ss of a focus on it's a relative statement. >> i'm with the postgraduate school and i can't thank you enough for listening to this. i think there is a problem with linguistic terms. the termem with realism and others think realistic and it doesn't seem to be realistic. most people don't understand what you are talking about. >> that's why we have this. >> i wish somebody would make a definition that we could all start using. we somehow don't think about governments. we assumed when we got rid of the army, let's figure out how to run themselves. governance is really hard and nobody talks about it. i heard him in september. i fell out of my chair whe

and the new problems of rising was saying think i beforehand that ben rhodes told of in the first year or two the administration -- i keep reading about rising powers, rising powers. copenhagen at the summit where obama managed to run into serious problems with the chinese and the indians and so on. he said those didn't look like rising powers with me, those were real powers. and -- and so that part is different. are lots of re different french or german diplomats that worry about there is less -- less of a focus on europe. this is a relative statement. >> i'm with the naval postgraduate school. enough annot thank you llistening to this. first of all, i think there is a problem with linguistic terms. the problem with the term realism, aand then there are others that think realistic. and it doesn't seem to be realistic. they are used, but most people don't understand what you're talking about. >> that is why we have this -- wish somebody would basically make a definition that we can all start using. secondly, i am struck by the issue of governance. we somehow don't think about governanc

are are the past seen as in and the new problems of "rising saying i think i was beforehand that ben rhodes told me in the first year or two of administration when are, it you know, i even reading about rising powers is rising powers, was just at the copenhagen summit where o obama managed to serious problems with with the chinese and indians and so on and he said they didn't powers to me,ng they were role powers and that is what -- real powers and that have to deal with. so that part is different. lotsnk although there are whorench, german, diplomats worry about this, there is less of a -- less of a focus on europe. this is a relative statement, than there was during the cold war. >> up here? postm with the naval popular graduate school. i can't thank you enough at listening to this. first of all, i think there is a terms. with linguistic the problem with the the term realism and others that think it doesn't seem to be realistic. it is not -- they are used but don't understand what you are talking about. >> yeah. this.t is why we have >> pulpibut i wish somebody woud that we couldion all s

and you know, part of the recent comments are interesting in january of 2014, ben rhodes, deputy nationalsecurity advisor told a group of activists that the nuclear deal with iran was going to be the quote obamacare of the second term. this was going to be their singular accomplishment, nuclear deal with iran, and they would be presumably seated in the faculty lounges across the globe. and that is a focus on political objectives, political objectives frankly driven by naÏvetÉ, driven by a failure to perceive the manifest danger of a grand. but it also resulted in this administration not paying attention to the of the threats and being caught completely unaware. >> shuddering at the image of faculty lounges across the globe. i don't think it would be very good for america. why do we take a couple of questions and maybe i could has people who haven't had a chance to be called on before -- i will try to call on you now. over here. a couple of people have questions. there's a microphone coming. >> senator, what's your take on what's happening in tunisia in terms of the arab spring in the rece

did you know someone by the name of ben rhodes? >> i don't know if been wrote personally. i know the position he was filling. >> i don't know him either but there was a memo for days after our fellow americans were killed in benghazi and goal number one of his communications memo, says to convey the u.s. is doing everything we can to protect their people and their facilities and a just struck me if you really were doing everything we could we would not have 50 separate recommendations at the rope that memo and this is the second hearing to make sure those limitations were recommended. i'm going to skip over that goal to get to the second goal. the second goal secretary starr was to underscore these were in a video -- so i'm going to skip over the video part of that for now and get to the second clau clause, the dependent clause, not a broader failure of policy. how can we judge whether or not a policy has failed or succeeded if no one tells us what the policy objectives were? how do we do that? how can you weigh and balance the risk? jimmy has gone through the risks. membe

in january of 2014, ben rhodes, the deputy national security adviser told a group of activists that a nuclear deal with iran was going to be the, quote, obamacare of the second term. this was going to be their singular accomplishment, a nuclear deal with iran, and they would be presumably feeded in the faculty lounges across the globe. and that is a focus on political objectives, political objectives, frankly, driven by naivety. but it also resulted in this administration not paying attention to the other threats and being caught completely unawares. >> i'm still shuddering at the images of faculty lounges across the globe. but why don't we take a couple of questions and maybe i could ask people who haven't had a chance to ask, been called on before to be -- i will try to call on you now. over here, couple of people have questions. microphone coming. >> thank you. >> from the center of study of islam and democracy. senator, would you -- what's your take on what's happening in tunisia in terms of the arab spring and the recent elections and the success of writing constitution. and woul