m i would like to bring in democratic leader bill nelson of florida. i hope you got a chance to listen to what kelly o'donnell was saying about the process of trying to secure the release of now-sergeant bowe bergdahl that date back to november of 2011 into january of 2012 when there were briefings to select members on the hill. have you ever had a briefing about this situation as a member of the senate armed services committee? >> no. and i can tell you there are other leaders of other committees that feel like they were not briefed but recognize that the president in signing one of the pieces of legislation into law issued a signing statement that in effect said that he reserved the right to act quickly in the interest of the country. so when it gets right down to it i don't think any law was broken. the question is should congress have been notified simply because of the relations between the legislative and executive branch? that is a different question and a lot of people here, democrats, as well, that feel that it should. >> well, the question, t

sergeant bill nelson was that day's shift leader and one of the first on the scene. >> now i can see that the inmate has a box cutter. pam is pleading with him not to hurt her. i try to open up a dialog of conversation, what's going on? let her go, we can work this out. he yells, get out or i'm going to kill her. >> i kept hearing him say, let her go, take me. let her go, take me. >> pam is still pleading, please don't hurt me. she's crying. and i go, hey, i'll trade with you. let her go. then you've got a sergeant. you can have me. >> he had the utility knife. i felt it scratch my cheek. >> he made a cutting motion with the blade from underneath her left ear to underneath her right ear. i saw the gaping wound open up, the blood fly, and he pushed her. what i did not realize is when he cut her, the whole world exploded through the doors behind us. >> officers flooded the sewing factory and swarmed the inmate. within seconds, kahanic was rushed to safety and the inmate secured to a transport restraint chair was taken to a segregation cell. >> and a short time later, i seen them bring

and my colleague from florida, bill nelson, for his leadership on this issue, even though he's not on the committee. we held a hearing on the issue in venezuela; he went to the hearing and he attended an event we did in miami with the venezuelan community to talk about this reality. that bill passed out of our committee, and in addition to passing out of this committee a very similar bill passed out of the house under the leadership of congresswoman ross lay continue. both the house and the senate -- and they passed it off the floor of the house. so the venezuelan sanctions bill is ready for action here on the floor of the senate. knowing that it was a noncontroversial issue that there is almost unanimous support for it, i have attempted to pass this bill by something that we call unanimous consent, which basically means that the cloakrooms, they call the respective offices and they ask all the members, we're going to try to pass this bill. do you have an objection? and the reason why we do it that way is so that we can save time, that we have the time available to debate these other

bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. reid: mr. president, the late committee on leslie nelson -- quote -- "doing nothing is very hard to do. you never know when you're finished." doing nothing is very hard to do. you never know when you're finished. mr. president, perhaps that's the case with the republican-controlled house of representatives. they just don't know when to finish doing nothing on immigration reform. today marks the 365th day that the tea party-driven house of representatives has sat on their hands refusing to fix our broken immigration system. the senate was able to pass immigration reform 52 weeks ago because both democrats and republicans in the senate understood the urgent need to mend our nation's immigration laws. yet for 12 months, 52 weeks radical republicans in the house refused to address the real issues affecting the american immigration system instead of obsessing over the president's deportation policies, they should pass this legislation. they've made it clear they won't act on immigration reform until they can trust the president, whatever that me