texas senator john cornyn is one of them.he senate budget committee and chairman of the national senatorial republican committee. welcome, senator. >> good morning. bill: you put out a strong statement. nothing short of baffling with senators on the democratic side. explain that. >> we believe as democrats including the president did in 2010 would slow economic growth. the last thing you want to do is depress the growth by taxing the very people we're depending upon to create the jobs and to grow us out of this, out of our doldrums. but that is exactly what our friend across the aisle have done in what is a show vote because, as you point out this bill is not going anywhere. because the house of representatives won't pass it. so, this is, this is campaigning in the halls of congress when we ought to be doing something serious about solutions. bill: here is what the president said. i want you to react to one key word. it is time for house republicans to drop their demand for one trillion dollar giveaway for wealthiest american

now of all people, senator john cornyn not pretending to care about civil liberties and human rights. look at this quote. he says we're not mere sum can'ts of the branch. it is unsufficient to say pretty please mr. president pretty please, mr. attorney general will you please tell us the legal authority by which you claim the authority kill american citizens abroad? look i'm telling you, it is an incredibly rare moment. hand it to cornyn there. we have the president of the america from -- the president of the united states of america can say hey, if you're abroad, i can till -- kill you and not tell you why. when he asks the attorney general, this sounds absurd. what did attorney general eric holder say? >> deprocess and judicial process are not one in the same particularly when it comes to national security. the constitution guarantees due process. it does not guarantee judicial process. >> cenk: that gave me a chill down my spine the first time i heard if. that sounds sew knicksonian there. couple of guys in the executive branch get together, should we kill that american citizen in

john cornyn joins me now. senator, i want to start with this and talk about some of the policy issues popping up as well. senator mcconnell said 50/50. you look at this list, you basically have ten targets. they have five. 2-1 advantage there for your side in targets. why isn't it better than 50/50? >> well, like our position better than our democratic friends. i think senator mcconnell is being cautious. we know the vast majority of the american people haven't focused on the november 6 election yet. and so we expect this to clarify as we get closer and as you know, in august, we a number of primaries. and some of that is going to -- who gets nominated will depend on the quality of candidate will determine, i think, our chances of success in november. >> two of those primaries are wisconsin and missouri. care to share who your preferences are in either of those primaries? >> as you know, i'm neutral in the primary. that's up to the primary voters. i think that they jealously guard their prerogative to make the

people like john cornyn and lindsey graham and jon kyl are on opposite sides of what we should do inob corker. the republican party is going through this crisis of what is going to be their identity in the future of national security. mitt romney as the presumptive nominee should be the leader of that party but nobody in this party wants to stake out a claim. they know the nation is war-weary, the public doesn't want military commitment, so they're trying to avoid it. i'm trying to press them to not avoid it and failing. >> doing a good job of it. fascinating dynamic we're seeing here, and what josh was mentioning, there's no taking of sides because they're split within the party on the issue but how late can you go without putting your stake in the ground and saying this is what i'm willing to do with the lives of american service members overseas? >> one of the things i wanted to ask josh, if there's a split within the republican party, about what to do in afghanistan, is there a split within the romney campaign about what should be done in afghanistan and is he -- is anyone in the

and speaking of the attorney general, there was a hearing back in october where texas senator john cornyn asked eric holder, have you talked to them at all? have you talked to the terry family to have you apologize for what happened? and eric holder said no. that was a little embarrassing, not on the level of self that but a public relations way. so instead of just apologizing right away, eric holder released a letter of apology to the press before the entire terry family was capable of reading it. >> does anyone in the justice department, or pure of our call to buckle and firearms come home and see beauty, does anyone dispute that two of e firearms found at the scene, brian terry's murder, were from this program? is that key that indiscreet? >> that defect of their from this, is not in dispute. but whether this program was a direct result of brian terry's murder is in dispute. and attorney general eric holder has made a point. he said it's not fair to assume that this program is why brian terry was killed spent you agree with that? >> i disagree. because the weapons that were left at the

up next, senator john cornyn is here with new information that disputes what the government says. >> idea? one of those women, a marine captain, says absolutely not. she'll be here live ♪ ♪ proud to and on our own ♪ proud to be homegrown ♪ a familiar face and a name you know ♪ ♪ can you hear it? ♪ fueling the american spirit ♪ no matter when, no matter where ♪ ♪ marathon will take you there ♪ fueling the american spirit c'mon, michael! get in the game! [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t. so talk to your doctor about low t. hey, michael! [ male announcer ] and step out of the shadows. hi! how are you? [ male announcer ] learn more at isitlowt.com. [ laughs ] hey! >> steve: major nidal malik hasan is accused of murdering 13 people at fort hood. even though his supervisors were told he expressed extremist views, the president has r

republic senator john cornyn of texas says releasing the results will reveal steps taken to prevent another jp morgan chase saying it could lose up to 7. a billion dollars from derivative trading debacle. up from the losses it reported just yesterday morning. ceo jamie diamond saying this whole mess has shaken the company to the core. is he now investigating whether traders covered up any additional losses. despite all this bad news. jp morgan did report a a billion-dollar profit yesterday for last quarter sending its stocks up 6% by the closing bell. more controversy surrounding team u.s.a.'s olympic uniforms. as you know there was a major uproar after it was revealed they were actually made in china. now the union family room's designer ralph loren is promising to manufacture in the u.s. but not until the winter olympics in 2014. that means our athletes will still be wearing chinese-made uniforms during opening and closing ceremonies at this year's games which begin in less than two weeks. those are your headlines. >> let us know how you feel about that ff weekend on twitter. >> still ang

senator john cornyn, the head of the republican campaign operation, i think the system needs more transparency, so people can more easily reach their own conclusions. other senators, colleagues and friends, come from states that require disclosure in election spending. the states that they represent know that this is wrong. the arguments against this bill are few. some of those arguments are false. others don't hold water. huge majorities of americans, republican, democrat, and independent, support cleaning up this mess. more than 700,000 americans signed up as citizen cosponsors of this bill in the last few days. i think the actual number is 721,000. but then that ran up against this. outside political spending that went from 1% to 44% not disclosed. in the last election and these secret groups like crossroads with $76.8 million, the majority of the money that they spend, secret money. and that has changed the debate. but those who are out of the need for that secret money, like republican senators rudman and hagel, are clear. a bill being debated this week in the senate called the disclose a

sessions, senator cornyn, senator collins, senator brown of massachusetts, senator coburn and most -- prominently and over a long period of time and with great distinction, senator johnain. i yield to my distinguished chairman and friend, the chairman of the judiciary committee, and giving his voice to this debate. mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i appreciate what the senator from rhode island has done. he has been a champion on this not only in the public forum like the floor of the senate but he's been a champion of it in the -- in the cloakrooms and the committee rooms, everywhere we might speak about it and he's been most consistent. and the people of rhode island are very fortunate in having somebody with such a strong voice. for the last two and a half years, the american people have seen the devastating effects of the citizens united decision. that decision by five supreme court justices overturned a century of laws, a century of laws that have been supported by republicans and democrats alike because they were designed to protect our elections from corporate spending. and what these five men