senator bloomenthal. >> thank you madam chair. there seems to be no doubt among any of our panel members that solving this threatened impasse or crisis on the west coast is necessary to america's near term and long term competitiveness. is that correct? but moving onto the broader issue mr. grueling's excellent testimony about our ongoing failure and it is a kind of slow motion implosion of america's competitiveness. the ongoing failure to spend more than 2% of our gdp on infra infrastructure investment which compared to 8% in china, 9% in india. even mexico 4%. it extends not only to roads and bridges which are crumbling but also areas of our infrastructure like rail great. just days ago we saw the consequences of a rail grate causing that could have been made safer and could have prevented the deaths and injuries that occurred there. the fact of the matter is there are more than 2,000 crashes every year causing more than 230 deaths it and 700 injuries. not to mention the economic costs of those collisions which are very difficul

senator bloomenthal, the president didn't talk about the repeal of the 2001 authorization, which seems to suggest that the white house thinks it already has permission, so what's the point of all this? >> that's exactly one of the key questions here. how can we leave in place the supposedly obsolete authority that is so broad and vague that maybe it makes unnecessary this authorization the president is requesting? part of what needs to be done is to repeal not only the 2002 authorization, but the 2001 authorization. >> the 2001 authorization, to be clear, was written in the wake of the september 11th attacks and is directed at those who sponsored those attacks. isis didn't exist at that point. are you surprised it wasn't in the white house proposal? >> i am in a way surprised. it is a key question that needs to be answered along with others, such as the scope and scale of the united states military involvement. there's this phrase enduring offensive operations. what is an offensive operation or a defensive operation? that point may need to be clarified. in the background here is a key

richard bloomenthal lied.at point, as news viewers as well. the public is going to decide this. brian williams is number one in the cbs, nbc abc, he's number one. nbc's not going to have a legitimate reason to just get rid of him unless the viewers respond. >> a producer or lower level on-air reporter they would have gotten fired. >> but it's consumers that have to demand -- >> tamara, you may think less of me but you might vote for a liar. >> i always vote for liars because they all lie. you're the only honest guy in all of tv. >> all right. coming up, isis claims that a u.s. hostage was killed during the jordanian air strikes. now shepard smith will sort through all the clutter. he's on the ground in amman, jordan tonight. that special report coming up next straight ahead. [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 million people. [ susan ] my promotion allowed me to start investing for my retirement. transamerica made it easy. [ female announcer ] everyone has a momen