the privacy rights this bill issues now even the president is weighing in in a letter to congress the white house threatened to veto the bill in its current form to talk more about this tangled web i was joined earlier by sharon bradford franklin she's a senior counsel at the constitution project and i asked her what this legislation would mean about the average person and what it should and could mean for our personal web use. well the problem is that the bill that was passed today by the house does not include adequate safeguards to prevent private companies from sharing your personal information with the government and the basic approach of the bill is to promote information sharing between private sector and the government and the basic concept of that is fine as long as we do have robust safeguards built into the bill and unfortunately we did not get that with this book now let me ask you this this bill in its current form it says that it wants private companies as it promotes cooperation it asks private companies to share their information but it does not force them what does that mean that

the u.s. government has been shifted from congress to the white house. so we no longer have the constitution designed for coequal branches of government. we now have a politically dominant executive branch. so what do we do about it? many scholars say congress needs to assert itself and use its checking and balancing of power. if the congress serve this role we wouldn't have things like watergate in abu ghraib and other presidential authority. the problem is congress has proven incapable for various reason collective action but congress has proven incapable of fulfilling these check and balancing rules and the transfer much of their authority to the white house. all of the scholars are not worried about this. congress they say look, congress can't act decisively or did -- efficiently. it may have made sense to have a powerful congress released a coequal congress 200 years ago but in the modern american state with a local economy in the fast-moving technology we need a very strong executive. now, i don't think we need to settle that, whether we should have

the u.s. government has, has been shifted from congress to the white house. so we no longer have the constitutional's designed for coequal branches of government. we now have politically dominant executive branch. so what do we do? many scholars say congress needs to assert itself, and use the checking balance of power. if congress served its rule we wouldn't have abuses like watergate and abu grain. but congress has proved incapable of fulfilling its checking and balancing role and transferred much of their authority to the white house. scholars aren't worried about this. congress, they say -- look, congress can't act decisively or efficiently. may have made sense to have a powerful congress, or at least a coequal congress, but in a modern american state, global economy and fast-moving technology, we need a strong executive. now, i don't think we need to settle that debate, where whether should have a powerful executive or not, is not critical to my argument. even if the executive branch had not accumulated too much power, it's amassed too much power for one

the cruel atmosphere because once that starts at the highest level in the media in the white house or in the congress it spreads to all american bureaucratic agencies so it is possible i don't know if it's lightly but it's possible that the s. f.b.i. just didn't take it seriously chalked it up to a human rights issue having nothing to do with terrorism but it whatever the original. reason to devalue the russian report they didn't follow up when the brother returned to the united states after six or seven months in august and that really is inexplicable well stephen i want to take you to. senator rather florida senator bill nelson had this to say about the investigation let's take a listen the f.b.i. and all law enforcement responded very well and you know this stuff about russia warned us well we inquired of russia some will times and russia didn't respond so the f.b.i. and our intelligence community was all over that. ok stephen so what do you make of this because the reports show that the u.s. intel agency of both the f.b.i. and the cia both had families are not on their radar think the tips from t

in a letter to congress, the white house reaffirmed what the president has repeatedly said. weapons is a red line for the united states of america. but before jumping to any conclusions, the white house said, "given the stakes involved, and what we have learned from our own recent experience intelligence assessments alone are not sufficient. only credible and corroborated facts that provide some certainty will guide our decision-making." secretary hagel said the administration will respond carefully to any new information. >> we need all the facts. we need all the information. as to a red line, my role as secretary of defense is to give the president options on a policy issue. that's a policy issue. and we'll be prepared to do that at such time that the president requires options. >> joining me now, david corn, washington bureau chief for mother jones and msnbc political analyst. david, it turns out some senators don't need all of the facts. john mccain saying today that we should have intervened months ago. he doesn't need to wait for anymore facts. it has this feel of, for

congress. the white house adviser dan pfeiffer. let's begin with budget. it's going to come out on wednesday. t time, cuts to social security and medicare. already house speaker john boehner has dismissed them. and a lot of democrats are worried that the president is turning his bottom line in negotiations into an opening bid, how do you respond to that concern? do you think it will change the dynamic? >> it's important to understand that what's in the president is the offer that he put to speaker boehner in december. and what this does, it shows one, the president is serious about trying to find a balanced solution to our deficits and have a comprehensive economic plan. and it shows we don't have to choose between deficits and job creation and economic growth. you can do both.

writes and even president obama is weighing in in a letter to congress the white house threatened to veto the bill in its current form so to talk more about this tangled web i was joined earlier by sharon bradford franklin she's a senior counsel at the constitution project and i asked her what this legislation would mean of the average person and what it would mean for us using the web. well the problem is that the bill that was passed today by the house does not include adequate safeguards to prevent private companies from sharing your personal information with the government and the basic approach of the bill is to promote information sharing between private sector and the government and the basic concept of that is fine as long as we do have robust safeguards built into the bill and unfortunately we did not get that with this but now let me ask you this this bill in its current form is says that it wants private companies as you said it promotes cooperation it asks private companies to share their information but it does not force them what does that mean that's correct it is volun

when it comes to how to fund these operations, fund the pentagon, with the cut in military spending. congress and the white house are completely far apart. even within congress they can't agree on how to pay for all of this, and this is really affecting the pentagon in this day and age, whether you think there should be more or less money devote to military spending, the uncertain is he it is -- the uncertainty is a problem. >> he talks in one voice about red lines and we need not to back off of red lines, but then in the next breath he was saying i don't want to get involved anywhere because we're not in the position to get involved in all of these places. and when you talk about afghanistan, he is saying we're winning in afghanistan, but we've been fighting in afghanistan for 12 years and we've not yet subdued the taliban, and yet we're confronting possibly north korea, talking about iran, we're talking about military intervention in syria, and it begs the question, well, if you have red lines, you may have to actually back off the red line if you don't feel like you have the military that can meet these chall

administration has gone out of its way to make the forced budget cuts feel harsh and the white house blamed congress for passing the sequester. you say it started long before the latest round of cuts. >> the fa ahab struggling for decades now with an air traffic control system based on antiquated technology. it is inefficient to run the radar based system and take as lot of controllers to do so. when you have a situation like we did this week where you have a 10% cut in man power, the effects are immediately felt in the system, and the predictions that there was going to be chaos in the air system didn't take long to manifest themselves, and throw in a little bit of bad weather early in the week in new york and the effects were very, very clear to everybody. >> josh, i know it was a pain. it was a real pain in the neck. was the flying public ever at risk? >> from a safety perspective, no, and of course the faa managed air space capacity in order to maintain the same level of safety. it was never a question of risk to the traveling public. it is just that given the safety standards that have to be ma

the white house? >> reporter: well, in the face of north korea's latest threats, members of congress and the white house staff weighed in on today's sunday talk shows. arizona senator john mccain was asked what would happen if there were open hostilities with north korea? >> south korea would win, we would win if there was an all-out conflict, but the fact is that north korea could set seoul on fire and that would be a catastrophe of enormous proportions. i don't know what kind of game this young man is playing, it's obviously brinksmanship. >> reporter: the young man mccain is referring to, kim jong-un, analysts say he's trying to proof his meddle at home and pressuring the west to provide aid. and the test of missiles last year and nuclear weapons this year and threatened war with the u.s. recent weeks and moved a missile to the east coast of north korea, a white house aide suggested he's playing a dangerous game while further isolating his on people. >> we have a situation where the north korea is having a pattern we've seen for many, many years. provocative actions and bellicose, and the korea to st

congress which originally bassed the sequester take extraordinary measure. the congress did not do anything about the other budget cuts. then you had a white house which signed the sequester into law give up the greatest piece of leverage and cave on demands for a complete fix. it makes people wonder how serious they are about the budget and getting our spending in order or if this is all about jocking for power and whoever is out of power complains about the budget. >> special interest has taken over. today i flew in from miami to new york. there were no flight delays on the plane. then i had to get on the new jersey transit plane. chris christie didn't want to spend the money on infrastructure. congress is focusing priorities on people who are best targeted, people with the most influence and aren't doing a lot to help the ordinary people or people who are unemployed. >> does this come as a big revelation? >> what is so disappointing to me is that the democrats did cave on this and gave up all of their leverage to try to negotiate a better deal. >> let me play watt the president said in his weekly address concerning this. >> and maybe because

. >> president obama is set to host a dinner at the white house tonight for female senators. voters elected 20 female senators to congressmber, a record. the white house says that the dinner is part of the effort to improve lines of communication with congress and lay the ground work for future compromise. the president had dinner with senate democrats last weekend with senate republicans before that to discuss various issues. >> town leaders in california want someone to pay their expenses for a presidential visit. president obama attended fundraisers in atherton and they spent $5,000 on police overtime and now they want reimbursement. they are sending bills to the white house and the democratic national committee and the two people who hosted the president. they admit that chances of getting any money is slim. by comparison the san francisco spent $42,000 on the last presidential visit. >> this morning, contra costa built officials will spray insecretary side to handle the mosquito problem in the eastern part of the county starting at 5:30 a.m. until 6:30 a.m. fours say there is a high concentration of mosquitoes in th

the overall economy. what do you think? should we do that? even in congress and the white house both president obama and members of congress have proposed that average gdp growth of zero point* 5%. we don't hear much about that. the both of them have proposed limits. you could say no to a trajectory but what do you think? should we have limits to how much we spend? the health care reform law has proposed the independent advisory board to be set up with 15 minutes and they would recommend ways to curb spending based on realignment and closure commission remember we had to close military bases is very hard for elected officials to make those decisions to close the military base for their own constituencies of a seated that responsibility to experts in congress had to agree or disagree. palace the model used for the independent payment advisory board. cannot change medicare eligibility raise premiums are cut benefits and if congress doesn't like any recommendations it doesn't have to agree with any of them but it would have to come up to find equivalent savings of its own. it was r

they want to say no. >> the letter from the white house to congress suggests a small out of sarin gasblazed on fit rolling cal evidence or blood or tissue samples from the victims. the white house wants more evidence. the letter from the white house says the intelligence community assesses, quote, with dearth degrees of confidence the syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale. chuck hagel appeared to be surprised when he left israel where there were initial reports that chemical weapons had been used. he was asked today about the report that chemical weapons had been used and the letter sent from the white house to congress. here's what he said. >> what was the evidence? >> i don't know the specific evidence. i haven't seen it. >> that's a pretty big caveat. he says he hasn't seen the intelligence suggesting chemicals weapons have been used. is this a redline? u.s. military forces say 20 people were victims of the alleged sarin attack. more than 70,000 have been killed through conventional means. >> what is the pentagon prepared to do, should this red line be crossed? >

the white house? >> harris north korea's threat the congress and white house staff weighed in on today's sunday talk shows. senator john mccain was asked what would happen if there were open hostilities with north korea? >> south korea would win. we would win if there was an all out conflict. north korea could set seoul on fire. that would be a catastrophe. i don't know what the game the young man is playing. >> the young man kim jong-un the leader of north korea. he's pressing the west to negotiate and get financial aid. he tested a missile test this year and nuclear this year. he moved a missile from the east coast of north korea chth an aid suggests he is playing a ang a dangerous game while threatening his own people. >> we have a situation we have seen for many years provocative actions. the onus is on north korea take a step back so they can understand what they say is the economic goal. >> officials have all said they would take his threat and don't want to do anything to escalate the tension. >> kim jong-un is so unpredictable. don't know what he will do next. general martin dempsey chairman of th

. >> the letter congress sent to the white house was easy in terms of use of language. they said we have evidence that leads to these initial assessments that chemical weapons were used on a small scale. but we want corroboration. an assessment is just that. it's an assessment of the evidence before you. corroboration is it's beyond a shadow of a doubt. and so they want to move in that direction before they take any steps. also, i think one reason, and david can speak to this as well, i'm not sure there are a lot of good options. >> right. let's go through that. >> once you get to that red line. >> we say we like to get the russians and the chinese not to veto as permanent members and have a formal u.n. action, fine. if it's a u.n. action. it always winds up us on point. short of that, david, what can we do? it what would the president be force forced to do? >> the u.n. action would be for a negotiated political transaction. the russians would say we agree he must go and those prepared by former secretary-general kofi annan. >> would they take the assad family to russia

the budget sequester. members of congress today urged the white house to postpone those furloughs speedupir avelnd find otr ways to save money. those long lines means more americans are flying and that means good news for some of the nation's biggest airlines. with two major carriers reporting their latest quarterly results today, phil lebeau tells us what's drawing profits at the airlines and the challenges they're facing in the months ahead. >> the combination of tax liens and higher revenue drove two of the country's largest airlines to post a rare profit in the first quarter. >> delta air lines, excluding charges it earned 10 cents a share on revenue of $8.5 billion. by the way, this is the first profitable first quarter in over a decade for delta. >> meanwhile, u.s. airways beat the street earning 31 cents a share on revenues of under 3.4 billion. the combination of tighter capacity and higher load factors meant they were lower in the first quarter and fuel prices also help the bottom line. executive it is for the airline expressed concerns due to the faa furloughs impacting their business in the seco

the criminal moscow had one narrative about what's going on in the world and washington the white house the congress have a different narrative and this extends all the way from the russian provinces of ships you know and i was stunned to the middle east the united states sees all this or most of this kind of rebellion and islamic areas as a kind of democratic insurgency washington thinks the arab spring is about democracy. britain and the russian leadership view this very differently partly because russia is also an islamic country with twenty nine eight million muslim citizens but the position in moscow has been beginning with the war in chechnya and now the anti terrorist operations in douglas stone is this isn't about the markers in these people aren't rebels they're terrorists so the narrative extends all the way from russia to the middle east because putin's view of the middle east is the same that the forces that have been unleashed in the middle east the act establishment forces aren't democratic they're they're extreme islamic forces and their example is more terrorism intil moscow and wash

. >> greta: all the congress and the white house and house and senate has to do is exempt the cancer drugs for the medicare patients from the sequester. come back and do that. ted, thank you you. >> thank you, greta. >> greta: i hope the message gets throughout. thank you, ted. >> appreciate it. thank you very much. >> greta: tonight's hot put ton issue guess what that is? it is on greta wire .com. do you think the president of the united states, the senate and the house should come back to washington now to fix this cancer clinic crisis that they cree heiated? vote on the poll on gretawire. go and vote on this. straight ahead, can you believe it. new troubles with obama care. are the insurance exchanges crashing before they even get off the ground? that's next. >>> chilly new information in the texas prosecutor murders. an eyewitness saw the killer put his hands to the assistant d.a.'s head. what else did she see? the live report from texas is coming up. >>> forget tivoing and the harlem shake. a new craze is taking social media by storm. what in the world are these people doing? st

any group atmosphere because once that starts at the highest level in the media in the white house during the congress it spreads all american your ages. now let's take a swing around the globe to look at some other news making headlines this hour a new expect has been arrested in the case of the poisoned letters that were sent to president obama and the two other u.s. officials last week martial arts trainer everett dutschke was taken into custody following a search of his home in mississippi earlier this month he pleaded not guilty to child molestation charges in a separate case this week police released kevin curtis another suspect in the poison letters investigation it has been suggested that curtis was framed by dutch gun due to an ongoing feud between the two men. in the u.k. hundreds of protesters have marched outside a royal air force base after it started operating on manned aerial vehicles in afghanistan activists are demanding an immediate end to graham because of the high civilian death toll linked to u.s. drone attacks the ministry of defense has confirmed reports that the first overseas

there is some rogue security service out there that does not operate at the direction of the congress and the white house, elected american officials, and under the law established by the congress and interpreted by the department of justice, i did not live in that world. they told us what to do. we tried to execute it as best we could. >> rose: you know, you backed out of a confirmation. was it because of this kind of talk? >> yes t was. i was nominated it was incredible honor for what was once a junior officer, me an entry level officer to become head of intelligence for a department of homeland security. i was happy to take the hearing. it was gok an open, televised hearing but i was the only person who was a cia nominee for a job that required senate confirmation. and the senate started to say publicly and to the white house and others and to me we're going to nail your head tie wall when you come down here because at that time there were debates about what the congress knew when. arguments between republicans and democrats. my personal attitude was already, bring it on, let's go. but i thought i hav

and in the outskirts of damascus however a letter that the white house has sent to members of congress states that washington cannot confirm the origin of the chemical weapons allegedly used acting in lockstep with the u.s. british prime minister david cameron has come forward insisting that his government has limited but growing evidence of the use of chemical weapons by the syrian military according to reports my six agents operating in syria us most out of the country to be analyzed for chemical and biological contaminants however u.k. military scientists reportedly said the soil contain treece is of some kind of chemical weapon though it could not positively identify the type of weaponized chemical now in an interview with the b.b.c. cameron said he worries that western leaders might fail to act in syria because of the experience of foreign intervention into iraq now we all know that britain france france have been voicing unconditional support for syrian rebels and reportedly providing the opposition with military and financial aid in the meantime the syrian government is now is b

the egg roll would be cancel. but congress and the white house struck a deal and white house officials said the egg roll was neverject to the sequester, however, the owner and chief executive of a brother personally wrote a $25,000 check to help cover the costs of the easter egg roll to make sure the event would not be cancelled, and one company contributed one thousand tote bags for children to but their easter eggs in. however the national park service, which organizations the easter egg roll, says the event is historically funded by sales of wooden eggs and private donations about the park service has not announced the full cost of the event and has not disclose who'd the private corporate donors were. the secret service cannots' accept outside donations and as a result of the mandatory budget cuts, the secret service does not have the funs to perform background checks on individuals who wouldn't to go on white house tours. back to you. >> now we know. now, my next guess, a perfect example of what can happen when the private sector steps in. monica crowley. classic capitalism. >> yes, and this this perfect exa

possible and let her daughter do much of the role of the white house hostess. >> the introduction of the white house library became a controversy with congress. that she successfully lobbied key committee members to bring the library to the white house. >> she would go out to dinner parties talking with them. it was the standing that she could not do. but she obviously convinced them. here comes to thousand dollars to staff up -- to set up a white house library. set up the white tha house library. apparently she did a very good job of selecting a broad category zero volumes for the library. .he was interested in music they were also very interested in geography. they loved that. they are very interested in the world in that respect. she is the schoolmarm. the little film about the fillmore house, there was one slight error. they were not both teachers. millard fillmore was actually her student. she was 21 years old and she was teaching in a private academy, and millard fillmore had been apprenticed to a textile factory to learn how to run of making machinery. this was during the 1830's in the middle of the depression. the factory late of eve

republicans on capitol hill blaming the white house for needlessly creating the situation. and now the white house is saying that congressas got to deal with the sequester. day three of the sequester's impact on the nation's air traffic and delays are becoming the norm on many routes. hundreds of takeoffs and landings delayed. nearly every city affected. 30 to 45-minute delays in dallas and los angeles. ground stops at washington national and dulles. and a ripple effect across the country. kim zolar flying from dallas to laguardia for an important meeting was more than 90 minutes late. >> we were supposed to leave at 8:25, and just as we're about to leave, they said, sorry, we're not leaving. we've been sequestered. >> reporter: jonathan rogers sat on the ramp for two hours. >> new york city is right there. you want to reach out and grab it. >> reporter: in all, more than 1,200 delays yesterday blamed on the shortage of controllers, another 1,400 delayed by weather and other issues. a job that literally keeps the nation's economy and its people moving caught in a budget stalemate. of the roughly 15,000 air traffic contro

not linking at this point the suspicious packages sent to congress and to the white house to the bombings in boston. for more, let's go to kelly o'donnell nbc news capitol hill correspondent. kelly, as jay carney was speaking we got a update that carl levin also received a suspicious package in his regional office in michigan. this certainly must have capitol hill on high alert, to say the least? >> reporter: what it points to is the level of scrutiny people are giving to anything that looks slightly out of the ordinary, which is what official have told the public to do. you have a senior united states senator putting out an official release, to say at his saginaw, michigan, office the staffer believed the letter appeared suspicious, it was not opened. the protocols set in places for congressionally offices were followed. so levin is making this news public. he said he is grateful for the authorities who are handling this and responding. what it does is that it puts another piece into what has been a complicated day. with two senate office buildings, there have been police activity where

there's debate if it's the white house or congress that needs to fix the problem. >>> president obama is getting online backlash from california's attorney general, kamala harris. he said, quote, she's brilliant. she's dedicated. she's tough. she also happens to be by far the best looking attorney general, it's true, come on. the audience reacted with a mixture of surprise and laughter. you can imagine the response on twitter. many called the comments sexist. others asking, what's the big deal? new york magazine tweeted, obama's comment about kamala harris is disgraceful and really terrible for equality. he probably intended to pay her a comment, but she deserves better. neither harris or her office responded. >>> for the first time, more americans believe marijuana should be legal, then illegal. a new pew poll show the majority of americans support legalizing it. 52%. 12% of americans supported decriminalizing pot in 1969. it's jumped 11% in three years. 72% say the cost of enforcing marijuana laws is more trouble than it is worth. only a third of americans say smoking it is morally

congress. the white house comes back to it a little bit better. me old battle that we have been in for the last month or two. >> can i ask you about your last article, no welfare if your kids gets mono or depression? what is that about? >> this is the latest hair brained idea to come out of the legislature, this is in missouri, the republican controlled legislature, there's a member there who says they want to tell welfare recipients that if your kid misses 10% of the school year, if they have mono, if they suffer from depression, some form of long-term illness, the family loses government assistance, they're calling this the don't get sick bill. this is the toxic extreme ideas that some republican lawmakers are putting out there, it doesn't do any good for the party as a whole when you have some republicans peddling don't get sick bills like this one. we have some tragic news, evangelical pastor rick warren and his wife are mourning the death of their youngest son matthew. >> reporter: alex, good day, you know sunday services are wrapping up here

the overall economy. what do you think? should we do that? and even in congress and the white house both president obama and members of congress, paul ryan, have proposed limiting average medicare spending per beneficiary to gdp growth at 0.5%. we don't hear much about that. but both of them have proposed limits, because they know that trajectory that we're on. what do you think? should we have limits to how much we spend? the health care reform law had proposed ap independent advisory board, it'd be set up with 15 members appointed by the president, confirmed by the senate, and members would recommend ways to curb medicare spending. it was based on the base realignment and closure commission. we had to close a lot of military bases. it's very hard for elected officials to make those decisions to close a military base in their own constituency, so they ceded that responsibility to experts, and congress had to agree or disagree. that was the model used for the independent payment advisory board. it cannot change medicare raise premiums, cut benefits, and if congress doesn't like the

confirmed suspicious letters containing a poisonous substance have been sent to both the white house and the congress and on the look containing the deadly poison raisen was also mailed to the office of the republican senator roger wicker of mississippi yesterday now today another uncle of laced with the poison was found a draft of the president himself and to talk more about this with me i was joined earlier by r.t. producer. r.t. correspondent kerry and boring i asked for the latest information on the situation . well marit a lot to talk about a lot of activity today on capitol hill the white house has confirmed today that a letter containing a suspicious substance in this case. was indeed mailed to the president just yesterday as you have just mentioned the f.b.i. reports of another envelope that was delivered to a member of capitol hill a member of congress are on capitol hill in this case it was republican senator roger wicker from mississippi those concerns continued on today at the senate in the evacuation of both the russell and hart office buildings today so i mean from. another letter scare

administration has gone out of its way to make the forced budget cuts feel harsh and the white house blamed congresser. josh you say the faa's problems started long before this latest rouchbd cuts. >> the faa has been struggling for decades now with an air traffic control system based on antiquated technology. it is inefficient to run the radar based system and take as lot of controllers to do so. when you have a situation like we did this week where you have a 10% cut in manpower, the effects are immediately felt in the system, and the predictions that there was going to be chaos in the air system didn't take long to manifest themselves, and throw in a little bit of bad weather early in the week in new york and the effects were very, very clear to everybody. >> josh, i know it was a pain. it was a real pain in the neck. was the flying public ever at risk? >> from a safety perspective, no, and of course the faa managed air space capacity in order to maintain the same level of safety. it was never a question of risk to the traveling public. it is just that given the safety standards that have to be m

last month in new york and in the outskirts of damascus however a letter that the white house has sent to members of congress states that washington cannot confirm the origin of the chemical weapons allegedly used acting in lockstep with the u.s. british prime minister david cameron has come forward insisting that his government has limited but growing evidence of the use of chemical weapons by the syrian military according to reports m i six agents operating in syria smuggled soil out of the country to be analyzed for chemical and biological contaminants however u.k. military scientists reportedly said the soil contained treece is of some kind of chemical weapon though it could not positively identify the type of weaponized chemical now in an interview with the b.b.c. cameron said he worries that western leaders might fail to opt into. syria because of the experience of foreign intervention into iraq now we all know that britain france france have been voicing unconditional support for syrian rebels and reportedly providing the opposition with military and financial aid in the meantime the syrian government

. >>> days after the bombings at the boston marathon, another campaign of fear begins with suspicious packages delivered to congress and the white house, april 17th, this is "now." >>

the white house is trying to use that emotion to move votes in congress, trying to keep the storylineer than the red state democrats that aren't running the get behind bill. by the way, newtown families some expected to fly back with the president on air force one and they're going to begin a week-long lobbying effort of congress as well with the white house giving them support. >>> reminded members both parties applauded when the president called for a vote on guns in his state of the union. >> now that the cameras are off and not forced to look the newtown families in the face they want to make it harder and filibuster it. if we have a simple up or down vote, we can get this done. >> that's why the families are pushing to get a vote. 13 have threatened to filibuster any gun legislation. they have not ruled out a long stand on the floor. but this morning, there may be a glimmer of progress on some bipartisan negotiations on an expanded background check bill. pattume pat toumey is talking with chuck schumer. well now he's up for re-election in 2016, a presidential year. pennsylvania s

. >> woodruff: plus, we look at the relationship between the white house and congress, and what that means for spending cuts, immigration, and more. >> ifill: then, we update the investigation into the boston bombings with the latest information on whether the two suspects had help. >> woodruff: betty ann bowser reports on the perils of prescription drug abuse and the challenges of combating it. >> they're not getting it from drug dealer, they're to the getting off the internet. they're not purchasing it from down the street. they're getting from their homes. >> ifill: and jeffrey brown explores moves by five states to restrict access to abortion services. >> most americans have a common sense approach to abortion where they want parental consent-- consent, informed consent. americans believe they can make these personal decisions. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and by b.p./ >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and f

the white house wants to channel that anger away from the president. the white house is blaming congress. listen to jay carney yesterday. >> we made it clear that there would be these kinds of negatives effects if congress failed to take reasonable action. >> congress, congress, congress. all right, here is what we reported yesterday. it contradicts carney. we said president obama passed up the opportunity to allow flexibility and he said, no, we're not going to target the cut to nonessential areas. we said, the pain is deliberate and you're feeling it the at the airport. maximum pain that the president could have avoided, now, he blames congress. and here is more maximum pain for you. meals on wheels, that program feeds elderly people. 200 seniors in california will not get their meals now. blame the sequester. maximum pain, harry reid saw it coming. >> meals on wheels has a waiting list the first time in 16 years. it's going to effect meal and wheel programs all over the country and they've cut the size of meals they're serving the elderly to save money. >> he's in congress and he's bl

the problem, fundamentally? congress in particular, and the white house specifically have such a lose understanding, they really t understand what makes it tick and go. >> in congress, people ran businesses, and they do have some understanding in the senate anhouse, but the administration, i mean, it's populated by people who hardly ever earned an honest nickel i the private sector. i mean, when did barack obama do anything in the private sector? he didn't. that's a problem. there's a big difference. forget obama against the two bushes. what about obama against clinton? mr. clinton understood that national power, national prosperity began with the private sector. mr. obama, his whole world view is more government, more regulation, that's how jobs are created, the french model. gerri: the french model, works, oh so well, my friend. >> yes. gerr thanks for coming on, have a great friday and weekend. >> you too, take care. gerri: well, time for stories trending on foxbusiness.com. tonight, that weak gdp report weighs on the market today, dow up 111 points today. the s&p 500 snapped a five-day winning streak. consum

year on the biotech industry and it turns out there are 100 biotech companies lobbying full time and of those, they have hired 14 former members of congress and 300 former staffers of the white house and congress. the biotechnology industry has a lot of clout. and wal-mart and monsanto are partnering up in some ways. one of the ways recently with engineers with genetically engineered sweet corn i no food and water watching a lot of other consumer groups trying to get wal-mart because they want to be sustainable, to not by the sweet corn but they did and when wal-mart buys something it creates a market and monsanto plans to have 40 percent of the market for sweet corn be the genetically engineered friday and it will not be labeled. so we've revolutionized the food this system and but to put pressure on the suppliers to cut costs and to go into great detail. we don't have enough time but what it has done effectively to reduce its to process risk it is cheaper where they can have an easier time dictating policy so increasingly are food being produced in this country and if you talk about organic it is very difficult to even verify in the u.s. that organic products are meeting standar