john harwood with the details. over to you, john. >> maria, this is part of the sequester battle this is symbolic. you had president obama at the white house confirming he's going to return 5% of his salary since the beginning of the sequester, which hit on march the 1st. now, the president makes $400,000 a year. that's a little more than $30,000 a month, which means that 5% of that for a month, so far, we're just in the beginning of april, is less than $2,000. not a consequential amount of money, but this is part of the president's attempt to get the high ground, especially as some of the sequester effects kick in. i wouldn't be at all surprised, we heard a similar thing from chuck hagel, the defense secretary, because a lot of the defense cuts are coming in defense, earlier today. i wouldn't be surprised if we hear that from some members of congress, with the question of leadership as well. but principally, only for those who like president obama, don't actually need that money, maria. >> john, thanks so much. joh

. >> john harwood has been following the developments today and for the past weeks in washington and he is here now with the very latest. hi, john. what have you got? >> this is an interesting balancing act by u.s. officials and on the one hand we're trying to not let north korean threats and provocations go unresponded to, but they're also trying not to overreact and give the indication that they regard these threats as reflective of imminent conflict or anything of that kind. jake carney, the white house secretary said on air force one said the president was flying out west for fund raising and gun control, ven events and thia pattern of north korean officialsing to obtain the provocative language and that we have the new young north korean leader you have a temperature tagz for him to try to prove his toughness and prove his worthiness to lead that country, but the administration also can't ignore the things that he's saying. the reports that i've seen indicate that the missile defense battery will be operational within about two weeks, but i don't think the united states officials

john harwood joins us from washington now with more. tell us about what the president is likely to propose. >> reporter: what he's doing, tyler, is embodying the last offer he made to house speaker boehner when they were negotiating around the fiscal cliff in december into his formal budget proposal. so for example, the so-called chain cpi for social security is in his proposal. that will reduce future payments and because of the effect on tax brackets cause some people's ta taxes to go up to some degree. this is a president saying, see, i'm willing to compromise and all the flak he's getting only serves to underscore his argument. he's hoping to convince them to come to the table. >> will republicans go along with the idea that there's a revenue raise here as a result that people -- they'll be moved in the higher tax brackets? >> interestingly, republicans have said no more tax increases, but this is one set of tax increases they do support. this is a republican proposal which they pushed during the fiscal cliff talks. the question is

thanks, john. >>> john harwood reporting. >>> the fed kicking off a two-day meeting. the easy policy some say have fueled stocks to the all-time highs we have hit this past month, but wall street continues to be relatively pessimistic. where do you markets go from here? steve liesman has the exclusive results. >> hey, tyler, thanks very much. the 46 that we surveyed see the quantitative easing extending into 2014 if you look at that you are outlook, the s&p 500 specifically, they're pretty pessimistic. the blue line is the outlook for midyear. 1577, it's on your screen. how about for the end of the year, 1612, just a 1% increase. this group has been essentially wrong. you could argue it has been their pessimism that's been the wall of worry that the market has climbed here, but ultimately the consensus of the market as gained by the survey has been wrong here. let's hope they're wrong again. scott redden writing in, saying first-quarter earnings have little to do with the continuation of the rally. reasonable valuations and the fact that the economy continues to move

let's bring in john harwood to discuss more about -- any big news out of this, john? >> reporter: no. as you said, michelle, he was ratifying the notion that they've received the substances, initial positive tests. don't know for sure whether either the letter intended for the white house or for senator wicker actually contains ricin, but there was a field test that was initially positive. lots of false positives associated with that test. and secondly, he referred to the fbi statement saying that investigators do not believe that these letters were related to the boston marathon bombing. in fact, the fbi has said they think they knew who sent them. we heard some chatter yesterday from other united states senators, that roger wicker was the intended target of one of them, that they believe that the letter may have been sent by somebody who sends lots of correspondence to politicians in washington. and so, that would suggest the more visible and known person that is, that would cast some doubt on the idea that it was related to boston, and that's what the fbi believes.

some breaking news with john harwood. john, what do you have?, on this day where so much has been going on, relative to the boston investigation, to the ricin letters, to all sorts of other things, we have had some legislative action of significance in the senate. the senate just voted down, by 54-46, which means that it was six votes short of the 60 needed, the background check compromise that had been negotiated by joe manchin, the democrat from west virginia, by pat toomey, the republican from the state of pennsylvania, that was seen as the most significant element of gun legislation that is still moving in the senate, still likely to have something passed, but that was the keystone provision, at this moment, and it's gone down now. advocates from the white house to the senate democratic leadership say, we're not done yet. we may bring it back later. i frankly, don't see, bill, though, given how this moment, with all the pressure from newtown families, gabby giffords here, working, so fresh after some horrific events, i don't see how the chan

. >> thank you john harwood in d.c. awaiting president obama to make a statement on gun violence. we'll bring that right after this break. stay tuned. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the new blackberry z10. with time shift and blackberry balance. built to keep you moving. see it in action at blackberry.com/z10 but at xerox we've embraced a new role. working behind the scenes to provide companies with services... like helping hr departments manage benefits and pensions for over 11 million employees. reducing document costs by up to 30%... and processing $421 billion dollars in accounts payables each year. helping thousands of companies simplify how work gets done. how's that for an encore? with xerox, you're ready for real business. >>> and this is a live shot of the rose garden of the white house. the president is expected to make a statement on gun violence at any moment. as soon as he steps out to that podium, we will bring you those comments. in the meantime, ebay still trading lower in the after-hours session. it has just given guidance.

chief washington correspondent john harwood joins us now. >> geechlt it's been a crazy day. the administration predicted flight delays would happen and the fallout would be there. congress went ahead, chose not to do the sequester. now, 30 days after the furlough notices went out. furloughs have taken place. the sequester has hit. flight delays are happening. congress today had got deeply into talks about trying to avert those flight delays. the talks collapsed in late afternoon. now they're back on. i just got off the phone, larry, with a democratic leadership source, he says before your program goes off the air, the senate may have it by unanimous consent agre to a provision that would give flexibility to the secretary of transportation ray lahood to move money around and prevent further flight delays. only $253 million. it doesn't resolve, of course, the other aspects of the sequester. but on this one, it appears, not certain, but appears that congress is going to -- the senate is going to do this tonight, the senate would be expected to act tomorrow. >> john, $252 millio

john harwood has a look. >> here is what to watch for in washington in the quarter ahead. here is the supreme court justices will decide the fate of two cases that have been argued the involving the right of same-sex couple toes marry. in the capital, the house and senate are both going to try to work out a compromise on comprehensive immigration reform. and at the white house, the president and his economic team are going to continue to try to work with leaders on capitol hill and the rank and file to come up with a long-term budget deal involving some tax increases and cuts to entitlement. that's your second quarter channel check. for cnbc, i'm john harwood. >> for more on what's next for lawmakers in washington, let's bring in cnbc contributor and former white house deputy press secretary tony fratto. welcome, tony. thanks for joining us so early today. >> thanks, kate. great to see you guys. >> good to see you, too. give us a sense of the sequestration debate, the debt ceiling, the next couple of issues, current or next issues we're facing. obviously, this is having a

john harwood.se, president obama likely facing another budget battle when he delivers his fiscal plan to congress and that is happening on wednesday. his proposal would include cuts on spending on social security and medicare, which both sides of the aisle agree are necessary. but also, an increase in taxes, which senior house republican leaderships are already balking at. in the wake of today's poor jobs report, that is just 88,000 new jobs created to private and public payrolls in the month of march. one has to wonder what a new tax could do to the economy. of course, the country's jobless rate still edged down to 7.6%. that's down from 7.7%. but that is because people stopped looking for jobs. let's bring in gene sperling. he is the director of the national economic council and a friend of the "closing bell." gene, good to see you again. thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> give us your headline on that budget, whatever you can tell us, in terms of the headlines from what w

cnbc's chief washington correspondent john harwood joins us live from the white house.e heard jay carney reiterate what austin ghoulsby said. this may all be about the sequester. what are you hearing? >> in fairness, austan did not say that the numbers that we saw today on jobs were because of the sequester. he was saying it would strengthen the argument against it. all economists agree it would be harmful. the question is has it been harmful so far? it has only been in effect one month reflecting the numbers and declining employment was not that great in this number. but this will strengthen the argument by the administration to say that once washington stands up from having been doubled over by that punch to the gut, we need to have a more rational approach to deficits reduction. in the eyes of the administration, that means, yes, some cuts but longer term, to entitlements rather than to discretionary spending in an arrest by trary way right now. they don't want further tax increases but it will be an interesting back and forth and see whether this propels those negot

chief washington correspondent, john harwood joins us with the details. good evening, john. >> good evening, larry. on your earlier question, he gave straight answers, but didn't much news. what the president was doing was trying to put himself in the narrative on a slow week in washington with congress out. and as presidents often do, especially in second term, he found himself defending against things that have proven more difficult than he thought, whether it's defining when to act against that red line crossing in syria, he defended the fact that it's been more difficult than he expected to close gitmo, although he said he wanted to. defended the fbi over the intelligence before the boston bombing. said the health care rollout may be difficult, but he's making some progress there. and he also had to defend this fix to the flight delay issue by the faa, and he said it was hardly a perfect solution. here's the president. >> giving us the option of shifting money that's designed to repair and improve airports over the long-term to fix the short-term probl

john harwood, thanks so much. >> pete? >> i like the airlines. i've been on the airlines.ontinue to be on airlines. >> where your going when you are on delta? >> i love what they are doing with the refineries. everybody on the desk, everybody said that's the stupidest trade ever. it wasn't. it was the smartest trade because they got rid of the middle man. a great move by delta. it's hitting their bottom line. they have great cash flows. i think eventually you'll see some of that money come back to the shareholders. dividends, share buybacks. >> hold on, pete. the airlines can barely run the airlines and you want -- >> they used to not be able to. >> now you want them to run a refinery? it's so outside their core competency. >> everybody has shot against this saying they're running a refinery. it's ludicrous. they bought the refinery. they have the folks there running the refinery and that's where they are making all of this money. you'd be shocked at the kind of money they'll continue to make quarter after quarter. the may 17 calls were bought 16,000 of them today on a bit

john harwood, your reputation is stellar, as always.much for joining us. >> you bet. >> in this week's office politics, author and co-creator of the daily show liz winstead as a comedic and creative force, liz works out of her home, where we spent some time with her this week. in this episode, we discuss her midwestern catholic roots and get her thoughts on the new pope, bringing america to the airways and what prompted her to create the phenomenally successful "daily show." >> i like to say the genesis of "the daily show" happened about four years before "the daily show" actually happened when the explosion of cable news happened, and you know, i kind of watched a war unfold with graphics and a theme song on another network and i thought, are they trying to sell me a war or putting on a war? which led me to be a skeptic about media, in my act, in my writing, in everything, in how i took in information, how i responded to everything, and then cut to i was working on jon stewart had a syndicated talk show, and that got canceled. jon went

john harwood of cnbc and the "new york times." ed o'keefe of "the washington post."nd alexis simendinger of realclearpolitics. >> award-winning coverage and analysis, covering history as it happens. live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill. corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we went out and asked people a simple question -- how old is the oldest person you know. we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us know someone well into their 90's. even though we live longer one thing that hasn't change is the official retirement age. how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all f these years? >> additional corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by boeing. additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. ignore the headlines. the real stories this week could be

john harwood joins us with more on how lawmakers are looking to ease some of this pain. how are the negotiations proceeding, john? >> members of congress have been buffeted by the complaints about air traffic delays, republicans and democrats alike, even if they expected them to happen. the administration transportation department said they would. they're now talking within the senate of a possibility of a proposal that would be voted on perhaps late tonight, perhaps tomorrow. that would reshuffle money within the faa in order to reduce the impact of the sequesters, reduce the flight delays, it would only impact that element of the sequester, not the over all budget cuts that you referred to, the house would be expected to follow suit quickly, members don't want this heat much longer. >> why are they deciding to just deal with the slight delay part instead of the whole thing? >> that is the most conspicuous complaint they're getting. as tyler alluded to, if in fact we see repercussions on these other ars. food safety defense department, which is the subject to the highest

sure now these men are from the chechen republic area tomorrow and of course was born in russia john harwood was reportedly born in carriages than the family lived in dagestan in the russian federation for numerous years before reportedly leaving the country back in two thousand and one around that time anyway so obviously this has convoluted the ideas that we have right now so let's talk about the fact that these men are not from the u.s. how has that added an international aspect of these attacks one of the persons i think. that the western world need to understand is that chechnya is a part of russia certainly going back to sixteen sixty three russia has been in the into force for stretching into the then tsars russia it were part of the soviet union it didn't be part of the russian federation and the jacksons themselves originally began with an independence oriented effort. with regard to the resistance to the russian federation in the soviet union collapsed they certainly thought that was their opportunity russia has worked hard our to keep them in the russian federation and it wasn't u

a local neighbor person living in this area saw a blood trail and led police to the area where john harwood hiding now a helicopter of the officials was also able using heat signature technology to locate your heart hiding out in the boat even though he was covering himself up now it's important to note that a two hour standoff and shootout between police and a hard continue to eventually we know that there were. negotiating attempts because the officials were very interested in getting him alive eventually they were able to arrest him take him into custody following his arrest her heart was taken to the same hospital where his brother died also having suffered severe injuries he has been undergoing medical treatment under heavy guard your heart was said to have suffered injuries to use throat either as a result of a suicide attempt or the shootout with police and has been unable to speak he did however a week and on sunday night and was able to sporadically answer the f.b.i. squashed in writing after a week filled with tragedy shock fear and a mass lockdown the city of boston has breathed

i'm john harwood at the white house.dent obama has laid out his budget today and we're now joined by top economic advisor to talk about it. gene, two elements of your plan. you're trying to get conversation with republicans over a deal to replace the sequester. what is your read at this moment given response that you have heard from republicans. >> obviously, we can't control your reactions. keeps his offer to speaker boehner on the table. that was an offer that speaker boehner was very close to during negotiations and the president has been willing to stay with it even though that means he is willing to adjust to things. so the president has made clear that that offer is still on the table. that's $1.8 trillion in additional deficit reduction. so far we have seen that people are impressed by the seriousness. could not lead to something better than what we have right now. that doesn't deal with any of our questions. >> you talk about the negotiation with speaker boeh r boehner. you did have a negotiation and came to what

. >> john harwood, thank you very much. john rosenthal, thank you. keith, always great to have you on. >>> first lady michelle obama said to address congress from chicago. we will bring you the first lady's remarks from her hometown. >>> congress saying they are poised for more progress . >>> not a lot of smoke and mirrors in here. and if we can come together, have a serious reasoned debate, not driven by politics, and come together around common sense and compromise -- >> that was president obama just a few hours ago unveiling 2014 budget plan. it includes nearly $4 trillion in spending, cutting deficit by $1.8 trillion over the next decade. the plan calls for reductions in social security and medicare. new investments in education and infrastructure and taxes on the wealthy through the buffett rule insuring those that make more than a million a year pay their fair share of taxes. >> this does not represent some grand pivot from left to senter. it is really just a pivot from left to left. >> why don't we do what we can agree to do. why don't we find

let's get reaction now from john harwood who is outside of the white house. john, no real new information here. but, of course, the president quite adamant in reacting to what we've learned today. >> exactly, maria. two relevant statements. one, we don't know who did this and why. two, when we do figure out why, and who did it, they'll feel the full weight of justice. that is all the president had to say. everything else was simply repeating what have come out through spokesmen with the f.b.i. director, his discussions with leaders of congress, with leaders in massachusetts and in boston. and the investigation is fully under way here at the white house. you have tourists still outside across from where i'm standing in lafayette park. but they're kept on the far side of pennsylvania avenue by police and there's police tape keeping the avenue clear. so there's concern not a huge lockdown here at the white house by any means, but everyone is in full investigative move. >> joining us now by telephone is former secretary of homeland security, tom ridge. secretary r

john harwood is here with the budget proposal. over to you, john. >> maria, there are two different buckets of tax proposals in the obama budget. the first is the $580 billion in additional revenue for deficit reduction that the president wants to get by limiting the value of deductions to 28% for top earners and also by implementing the so-called buffet rule. but he would also take away to reshuffle priorities within the budget, the tax benefits of i.r.a.s beyond $3 million. he would get rid of the carried interest loophole benefiting hedge fund managers, and he would also have other limitations on the estate tax, which there was a deal at the end of the fiscal cliff. he proposes the to raise that rate to 45%. the president says those breaks for high-income people simply can't be justified. >> there's no excuse to keep these loopholes open. they don't serve an economic purpose. they don't grow our economy. they don't put people back to work. all they do is to allow folks who are already well off and well connected game the system.

a local neighbor person living in this area saw a blood trail and led police to the area where john harwood hiding now a helicopter all be officials was also able using heat signature technology to locate your heart hiding out in this boat even though he was covering himself now it's important to note that a two hour standoff and shootout between police and your heart continued eventually we know that there. negotiating attempts because the officials were very interested in getting him alive eventually they were able to arrest him take him into custody following his arrest your heart was taken to the same hospital where his brother died also having suffered severe injuries he has been undergoing medical treatment under heavy guard dzhokhar was said to have suffered injuries to his throat either as a result of the suicide attempts or the shootout with police and has been unable to speak he did however awaken on sunday night and was able to sporadically answer the f.b.i. sequestered in writing after weeks filled with tragedy shock fear and a mass lockdown the city of boston has reaped out a s

>> yeah. >> thank you. >>> john harwood joins us from washington. it was not that much different than last year. conan made the point that they don't want as many a listers there and he said, though that's why they got me. >> has becky put her pinky down and stopped looking down her nose yet? >> oh, boo look. >> are you a grandfather? >> no. >> you were just handing out cigars. did you get them free or something? >> no, joe, i drove out to the cigar store so that i would have party favors for you and our colleagues at the table. >> that was nice. >> gee, did you think i stow them? >> what should we -- that was pretty good dinner. everything is fair game. i thought the president was kind of hard on mcconnell and bachmann, kind of hard on nbc, kind of hard on fox. it was fun, though, wasn't it? >> well, i think the job is try to be funny and he pumped a little -- the bang thing i thought was clever that you showed. >> we haven't shown that where he said i'm getting older, i'm no long ter strapping young muslim socialist. i haven't seen any of the netw

john harwood at the white house. he joins us now. good evening, john.resident labeled this a terrorist action, did he not? >> actually, he did not, larry. the president came out and he said we don't know who did this. we don't know why they did it. said whoever, as you played that bite a few moments ago from our colleague at nbc, said we're going to figure out who did this and they're going to feel the full weight of justice. the president was cautious in his language, didn't use the word terrorism. >> but he said act of terror, right? >> no, he did not. but a white house official subsequently because many in the white house are cognizant of the criticism that they got, the accusation that they were slow, for example, to label benghazi an act of terrorism. so shortly after the president's statement, a white house official then e-mailed a lot of us a statement saying, well, obviously, if you have multiple explosive devices, it's an act of terrorism, but we don't know who did it, and we don't know whether it's foreign or domestic terrorism. the bottom lin

john harwood has more for us live from washington. if the house approves this. they are in the middle of voting now. this is taken up under an expedited procedure called suspension of the rules in the house which requires a two-thirds vote. nevertheless it's expected, even though some leading democrats are opposing it that they will get the votes to pass this. and if so, i think this crisis pretty rapidly will be -- will be put to rest on the issue of flight delays, simon, but, of course, there are many other issues generated by the sequester cuts. the question will be, is -- are any of those others any time soon going to be conspicuous and painful enough to cause the congress to enter into negotiations to get rid of all the sequester cuts or are they going to take up these piecemeal and try to solve these individually which is not what the democrats want, but the republicans would be happy with. >> in the meantime, a lot of people have said that politics was played here. that it was a foolish decision. that somebody is going to have e

john harwood is live at the white house. illion is real money, i guess, john. >> it's real money and those books are real heavy, too. they're a little bit archaic in the digital age, but those are being delivered to capitol hill this morning and the president will come out in the next hour and formally unveil the budget. there aren't that many surprises here and this is an attempt by the white house to bridge the gap between the house and senate. the house republicans and senate democrats coming out with their own budgets and i want to highlight tax elements of this budget and the first is the $580 billion that the white house says is for deficit reduction and that comes from the last offer to john boehner and the house speaker and the fiscal cliff negotiations and it comes from two sources and one, implementing the so-called buffett rule that anybody with incomes over $1 million after accounting for charitable giving pays a tax rate, and the second is a limitation of 28% on the value of deductions where people in the top two

let's bring in john harwood. >> reporter: good morning, david.o the political arguments as jim cramer suggested, and as jan hatzius suggested a moment ago when he talked about how sequester may have had a modest effect on this jobs number, but it will have more over time. that matches what president obama has said over and over including at this press briefing earlier this year. >> the longer these cuts remain in place the greater the damage to our economy. slow grind that will intensify with each passing day. and then right on cue, alan krueger, he ratcheted up that criticism of washington echoing jim cramer. >> the economy's continuing to heal. what we need to do in washington is avoid self-inflicted wounds. most importantly, they y isequ, the congressional budget office estimates it will reduce job growth by 750,000 full-time equivalent jobs by the end of the year. >> how does that affect the budget debate? look, the house and senate have both passed partisan and dechl democratic budgets. president obama is coming in next week with his budget

. >> joining me now nia malika henderson, and john harwood, two good buddies. what are you hearing about the direction of this investigation. >> it's mostly people covering their bases and being cautious before declaring these two acted alone. obviously you have the six months when the older brother was back in russia that causes suspicion, but there's a lot of evidence to indicate, including the testimony that dzhokhar has given to his questioners that they learned how to do this stuff themselves onlinings you can see what the older brother was posting and watching on youtube, so they're trying to make sure it was something bigger. it doesn't sound like there's a very strong -- >> what about, nia malika, the ke question about what the fbi knew and when and whether capitol hill might get involved in an investigation. >> you hear john mccain and kellie ayotte call for an investigation. they had concerns about tamerlan, the older brother, the cia ended up putting him on the terror watch list. the fbi launched and investigation and came up empty-handed and unable

john harwood is cnbc's chief washington correspondent. john, good morning, it's good to see you. >> good morning, lester. >> are we seeing the effects yet of sequestration, all those jobs that will be lost due to automatic federal spending cuts? >> not much. maybe a little effect. it's only been in effect for one month. more likely that we've seen some effect from the expiration of the payroll tax cut, which ended with that fiscal cliff deal at the end of the year. but look, we've got an economy that is growing, but growing slowly, and is likely to for some time. demand is pretty weak. when you add a little pressure, whether it's uncertainty over things like cyprus and continuing stresses in europe, whether it's the expiration of the payroll tax cut, or a little bump from sequester, it is a fragile recovery and we're seeing some of the effects. >> i want to get your thoughts on the president's latest budget offer, his attempt at a compromise to cut some social security and medicare, some entitlement, in exchange for more tax revenues. repu

. >>> joining us right now from washington is john harwood. he has the latestfindings. when the poll came to immigration, three or out of four americans are in favor of finding a legal passion to immigration? >> that's right. remember, this is why immigration has a good chance of moving on the hill. we also have a question in the poll that asks do you think overall immigration is good for the country? it helps the economy, helps culturally in the country or does it hurt for various reasons? and in the past, we've seen the majority say it hurts the country. that's usually in periods of greater stress and strain economically and when the flow of immigrants is higher than it is now, now we see a majority saying immigration helps, which is one of the reasons why it is a relatively good environment for the president and the congress to pursue this. >> we kind of new this after the election results of last time. you mentioned this is definitely an issue. the president out with his budget yesterday. when you talk to people about the sequester, most of them don't feel it's affe

. >> john harwood has breaking news. >> the breaking news is a letter containing a poison was also rereceivedhite house. it appears the threat that was underscored yesterday is broader than that. we now understand the letters were headed to other senators as well. involving senator shelby of alabama and now learning about this letter, our pete williams has confirmed that was headed towards the white house. we don't know whether this is related to the attack on the boston marathon. after 9/11 we had the threat of anthrax lertds. more than just a threat. a couple of people lost their lives in washington, d.c. turned out not to be related to the al qaeda attack on new york and washington. everybody is on a mump higher level of alert. we are going to see what the threat is about to the extent that authorities can learn it, carl. >> well said, john. certainly given some of the false positives we know related to the wicker letter, we're going to have to continue to watch it for further developments. let's get to rick santelli this morning and check on the markets. hey, rick. >> hi, carl. my thing t

john harwood at the white house. let's get to rick santelli in chicago.off their meeting. hey, rick. >> yes, and i have a special guest. back in september our guest john taylor along with mr. graham wrote what i have framed in my office is one of my favorite op-eds. the hidden cost of monetary easy. maybe you can refamiliarize our viewing and listening audience to the key points in your paper regarding how the exit isn't going to be easy and that the grand experiment has little precedent. >> yeah, we have never seen anything like this before. the massive expansion of the balance sheet and the the zero rates dfor many years. it's always hard to undo easy policy. this one was more difficult. we wrote about the dangers, if you like. and we're still concerned. this is not behind us. the more the fed continues to purchase, which i suspect they will be doing for a while, the more difficulty the unwinding is going to be. >> mr. taylor, educate me. we have a debate every day. the new phrase again is we are deflating. so my guess is that's a green light for the fe

john harwood, yesterday he did say we will get to the bottom of this. what can we expect?surprised he is making a statement this early in the day, carl. especially after we heard the boston authoritieses have a press conference in which they were beseeching the publish for help and assistance. which means they are just getting started in the investigation. they haven't been able to develop of picture of how this happened or who did it. perhaps he will appeal for calm and people being concerned around the country. you know, perhaps he will address the issue of terrorism. i did not use the word yesterday. an aide afterwards concerned the president was accused said well, of course an event with multiple explosive devices is by definition an act of terror. but for the president to use that word, it's freighted with all sorted of meaning. i think the white house was dlishtly cautious there. we'll see if he repeats that today. >> there are no known additional threats. but perhaps to deliver a reset given thavptcher's funeral. here is the president. and my homeland security advis

i'll defer to john harwood and everybody else in this bureau to tell me about that. >> is greg maffeiot the perfect guy to ask about microsoft's foretuntunes? can't he spin a scenario where the stock could go to $40? >> i hope he's willing to entertain the questions. greg usually is. nod are not just talking about sirius and liberty but i'd love to hear what he has to say. he he spent quite a few years at cfo of that company. good guy. >> timely to hear from him certainly. >>> still to come, hedge fund manager bill ackman is sticking with his investment in jcpenney. that's next, a live interview. he's just been named chairman of the xm radio. tomorrow i have an exclusive -- he's a media titan. he lives under the radar to a certain extent. that's kind of an old picture. though john malone still looking very good. shareholder of a lot of companies you probably don't even know that that's the case. we've got that coming up tomorrow. >>> let's take another look at futures as we see the s&p, up a little bit. just a little bit. more "squawk on the street" live from post nine, live from d.c.