in john tester state john tester is the senator who's who sponsoring the bill to to lead the swipe fee rules you know there's ads all over his state you can't turn on a t.v. or radio station in his state without him being attacked or supported for this i mean all across the board anyone who takes a position on it immediately gets hit with this influx of money and spending the one thing that is i think a little bit discouraging is that finally everyone is saying wall street lost a battle but is the only way the wall street is going to lose a battle is if it's up against another giant like this because we haven't seen wall street really lose any battles you could even say that the dodd frank reform bill was incredibly weak in terms of regulations that are put on it the banks are still too big to fail that you're not really regulating derivatives and we saw it's going to be prosecuted at the end of the day and still here in washington there's a lot of pressure for banks to go a little easier for people who are under foreclosure you haven't seen a lot of movement on that because people who

very interesting splits where dick durbin, the number two democrat is calling john tester an endangeredemocrat. and campaign ads are being run by retailers in montana to the tune of $1 million. this is becoming potentially the kind of thing that could affect some of these senators' careers. one thing that's interesting is the vote total -- it's not very often that something is coming to the senate floor of this consequence where it's really this uncertain going into the vote how it's going to turn out. i talked to a lot of senators yesterday who were clearly undecided and weren't really all that familiar with the details of the latest offer, but suddenly wanted to be. prepared to support something if there was a real compromise. it's not clear how it's going to turn out. you know, both sides have been saying it could be very, very close. and i think one of the things that you have to look at is a lot of times senators don't want to change their vote unless they are sure that this is going to pass, if it's going to clear the 60-vote hurdle. in order for this to pass, 16 senators have to

senator square mccaskill, john tester, ben cardin and bill nelson, all democrats with significant elderlyions who are up for reelection in 2012. secretary gates said that despite the death of osama bin laden is still too soon to wind down the war on terror. secretary gates is in the country, saying final falwells to u.s. troops before he retires at the -- final farewells to u.s. troops before he retires at the end of this month. in libya, there have been more air strikes in and around tripoli. they have hit a storage centers, command-and-control facilities, and radar systems. nato general rasmussen talked about the air strikes earlier. you can hear his remarks at 10:00 a.m. eastern. and a proposal to buy 10 american seed-17 aircraft for more than $10 billion. an indian official requires that boeing invest 34% of the profit in its defense spending in india. >> the house has completed work on the first two bills to fund the federal government. you can follow them at congressional chronicle with easy to follow schedules, plus video of every house and senate session. congressional chronicle a

very interesting splits where dick durbin, the number two democrat is calling john tester an endangered democrat. and campaign ads are being run by retailers in montana to the tune of $1 million. this is becoming potentially the kind of thing that could affect some of these senators' careers. one thing that's interesting is the vote total -- it's not very often that something is coming to the senate floor of this consequence where it's really this uncertain going into the vote how it's going to turn out. i talked to a lot of senators yesterday who were clearly undecided and weren't really all that familiar with the details of the latest offer, but suddenly wanted to be. prepared to support something if there was a real compromise. it's not clear how it's going to turn out. you know, both sides have been saying it could be very, very close. and i think one of the things that you have to look at is a lot of times senators don't want to change their vote unless they are sure that this is going to pass, if it's going to clear the 60-vote hurdle. in order for this to pass, 16 senators have t

>> yes the senate today rejected an amendment sponsored by john tester, democrat of montana and of corker a tennessee republican 54-45 and they needed 60 votes for it to be adopted. >> can you explain what are the fees? >> sure. so every time a customer buys something at a shop with a debit card, a fraction of that goes towards the bank. merchants say that fee -- banks have been taking an outsized cut. banks they know we need that for consumer protection and fraud and what not. so that is what the debate was over. last year as part of the financial regulatory overhaul, the dodd-frank law, the senate agreed to a durbin amendment to limit the fees that banks can charge retailers so this was an attempt to kind of rollback that amendment. >> so what does that mean, they the they tend to roll the amendments made for the supporters of the amendment, namely senators tester and corker? >> yeah, so they were trying to find a compromise to the 60 votes. initially when they introduced this legislation they said let's delay these new limits on fees for two years. then they tried to cobble together su

john fund. alisyn: more politics, some democrats now demanding that vice president joe biden take medicare off the table during budget negotiations. senators mccaskill of missouri, tester of montana, brown of ohio, consideringin of maryland and bill nelson of florida sent the vice president a letter expressing their turn. they're asking him to reject the gop plan to trim down medicare funding and restate his commitment to leaving the program alone. all five senators are from states with significant elderly populations and all are up for reelection in 2012. bill: we're hearing about john edwards now rejecting a plea deal that would have sent him to prison, a report in the raleigh observer saying that federal prosecutors wanted the former senator 20 plead -- to plead guilty to miss 19or charge and serve six months behind bars that, in exchange for dropping felony campaign finance charges against him, the report says edwards refused the jail time, he's accused of illegally using campaign money to pay off his mistress, rielle hunter, last year, edwards admitting to fathering a child with hunter while his late wife was battling breast cancer. alisyn: there was panic on a lo