that report and the state department's marie harf just ahead.s, has president obama become just like president bush in how he's fighting this new war on terror, and are we officially back in it? dana and marc thiessen are here next. >> we must be steadfast in the face of these cold-blooded killers. the only way to deal with them is to bring them to justice. >> the only language understood by killers like this is the language of force. my name's louis, and i quit smoking with chantix. i had tried to do it in the past. i hadn't been successful. quitting smoking this time was different because i talked to my doctor and i... i got a prescription for chantix. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. it was important to me that chantix was a non-nicotine pill. the fact that it reduced the urge to smoke helped me get that confidence that i could do it. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix

marie harf from the state department. talk more about this later in the hour. coming up, more on the new isis video featuring a british hostage. i will speak with msnbc counterterrorism michael leiter and i'll ask senator joe maf manchin. and will this go down as scottish independence day. mpr will join me live from scotland next on "now." ugh. heartburn. did someone say burn? try alka seltzer reliefchews. they work just as fast and taste better than tums smoothies assorted fruit. mmm. amazing. yeah, i get that a lot. alka seltzer heartburn reliefchews. enjoy the relief. create things that help people. design safer cars. faster computers. smarter grids and smarter phones. think up new ways to produce energy. be an engineer. solve problems the world needs solved. what are you waiting for? changing the world is part of the job description. join the scientists and engineers of exxonmobil in inspiring america's future engineers. energy lives here. [guyi know what you're excited. you're thinking beneful. [announcer]and why wou

interstates department spokesperson jen sock can i and marie harf who all began of criticism of jen sackyoes not answer questions preferring to dodge and weave. >> does the obama administration consider this an act of war? >> we certainly -- i'm not going it put new labels on it, james. >> but are american munitions that were given by the u.s. to egypt, are they actually tools of. >> yomentd to waste your time or our viewers but i will respectfully note you are not answering that question. >> because you and i pay ms. psaki's salary and her job is to answer questions about foreign affairs. i personally get insulted when she and other government officials avoid answering legitimate questions. so earlier in this week with a discussion with fnc correspondent james rosen this happened. >> when i asked jen psaki today in today's briefing about the apparent contradiction between wanting to destroy something and then wanting simply to reduce it to a manageable problem, she accused me of trying to, quote, twist words and play word games, bill. >> okay, with all due respect and you don't have to c

state department marie harf. marie, thanks for being on the show.'ll start you off with the question regarding ukraine. is there a worry that ukraine's presence at this nato summit that perhaps that the u.s. and our partners hugged them a little too close considering how fragile the the negotiations are going on right now between russia and ukraine considering the desire for ukraine to be into nato and that is something that russia does not at all want to see? >> not at all, luke, i think we've been clear that we'll stand by ukraine as they're facing a very, very serious security challenge not only in crimea, but in large parts of eastern ukraine. so the nato summit is a chance for us to come together with our nato allies and discuss issues of mutual concern. ukraine is obviously a huge issue that all of us care a great deal about. so is the threat from isis. so is what happens in afghanistan after 2014. so well's a number of agenda items on the table for the nato summit this week and ukraine is a huge one and an appropriate one. >> i want to turn t

because when the question was posed to marie harf, it went like this.ten. >> simply being a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization isn't grounds? >> it does not automatically mean your passport will be revoked. that is correct. >> so for now americans who have joined isis, and there are many, could easily be allowed to get on a plane or ship and come home. megyn. >> thank you, trace. >>> joining me now with reaction, tom mcinerney retired lieutenant general in the air force and fox news contributor. i don't understand how you can come right back into the united states just because you have a passport if you're a member of isis, general. >> i am too, megyn. i cannot believe this if this is in fact true. and i understand that michele bachmann is about to put in new legislation, a bill that would change this. but let's look at it this way. if you were a member of a terrorist group, you are aiding and abetting the enemy. aiding and abetting the enemy is treason against our constitution. so it would seem to me that automatically even without h

that report and the state department's marie harf just ahead.as president obama become just like president bush in how he's fighting this new war on terror, and are we officially back in it? dana and marc thiessen are here next. >> we must be steadfast in the face of these cold-blooded killers. the only way to deal with them is to bring them to justice. >> the only language understood by killers like this is the language of force. (vo) you are a business pro. solver of the slice. teacher of the un-teachable. you lower handicaps... and raise hopes. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. (pro) nice drive. (vo) well played, business pro. well played. go national. go like a pro. feet...tiptoeing. better things than the pain, stiffness, and joint damage of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. before you and your rheumatologist decide on a biologic, ask if xeljanz is right for you. xeljanz (tofacitinib) is a small

let's get back to marie harf.ou've heard these worries, that despite the coalition air strikes against isis targets, they seem to be moving, they're gaining territory in syria right now. >> i don't think i would say that overall they're gaining territory. the u.s. military has said our air strikes are effective in hitting the targets they're intended to hit. but this is going to be a long fight. no one week of air strikes is going to completely destroy their capabilities. >> they're still moving ahead. this is going to be a long, drawn-out process. >> it is. >> here's what was worrisome over the weekend. these are images of people in syria. these are people protesting in various parts of syria. these are not haters of america. these are the people who want u.s. support. they're shouting "death to america" right now. these are the people who want to be trained by the united states and they're saying they hate these air strikes because the u.s. is not going against bashar al assad's regime, they're going after their

that's a main conversation going forward. >> marie harf, thank you very much. joining me now, ayman moheyldin. obviously this is barbaric and monstrous and they're revel ining in that? what is the strategy here? >> for who? for isis, to deter america -- >> you think it's a first order -- they're doing this for the reason they say which is they are -- they don't -- the u.s. bombing campaign is hurting them. they want it to stop. >> i think you have to kind of step back a little bit to see what isis is about. isis right now is about territory. they're trying to take territory. they are in an ideological war with so much of the world. but they are not attacking turkey which is a muslim country, decadent western lifestyle. something they could have a fundamental difference with. what they're trying to do is take territory, solidify it, make that their control, their base of operation to launch future attacks against the world. maybe even to try to expand their conquest part of their ideology. so you got to understand that first step to be able then to see why it is

the state department spokesperson marie harf denied that yesterday calling the accusation without meritg us now from washington, fox news chief washington correspondent, james rosen. cheryl, what do we know for sure here? what's in fact because this is a disgruntled former state department official. he does have an ax to grind, so what do we know for sure? >> he was never charged with anything and was put on paid leave, was cleared, came back and retired. what we know is he's a very well respected 21-year foreign service officer who supported president obama, in fact personally contributed to his campaign, who was caught up in this benghazi controversy. and the deputy assistant secretary that handled libya, it was his office that put together documents when the accountability review board called for them and he discovered by happenstance that one of his officer directors had been asked to perform tasks on the weekend around him basically without being told. this was something he describes as had been close to the seventh floor, secretary clinton and her staff had been assigned there pre

o'reilly started this fight and marie harf is entitled to defend her boss. he was saying she looks like she was having trouble doing her job. there wasn't anything in those comments remotely resemble sexism. >> it's playing the victim. something always uncomfortable for a man to defend or whatever because you have the ism. he's not too impressed by jen psa psaki. the truth is she's been criticized in many corners in the past for hash tag diplomacy, like united for ukraine and people are looking at her saying what are you doing the state department spokesperson, act like you've been there before. >> right. well, you know, we can debate whether o'reilly was a tad harsh in assessing her whole performance. >> oh, please. >> but when you put yourself out there. when you are the spokesman for the united states department of state, you have to accept criticism. >> this should be alone. when you become the spokesperson for any, you know, organization -- never mind state department, you should not allow to be doing this and then tweeting it out. >> well, it kind of m

joining us, state department deputy spokesperson marie harf.s for coming in. >> thank you for having me. >> let's talk about steven sotloff first. have you now definitively concluded that this young 31-year-old journalist was beheaded? >> well, the intelligence community is still looking at video. they are working to authenticate it as quickly as possible. this is a process they take very seriously. just obviously from look that the, it this is true, an incredibly sad day, of course, for the sotloff family. for his friend. we are working quickly to see if we can authenticate it. we obviously are thinking about them today and know this is a very difficult day. >> we saw the very moving video that shirley sotloff delivered last week on arabia television, to save her son. obviously did no good at all. are they grieving with the family. >> in constant communication with the sotloff family, with other families of americans held overseas, we are offering any assistance we can. we have made clear home to and publicly, we are putting every diplomatic,

let's go to marie harf.of the things that was really interesting to hear today was fbi director james comey saying that he's not confident that air strikes inside of syria have disrupted the khorasan group who have believed to be close to a plot against the u.s. the question, then, is there some sort of imminent threat to still exists that khorasan has not been disrupted? >> i think when you take military action against a group, it certainly has an impact. you've heard my colleague, john kirby, say a few times over the past few days that these air strikes that we've taken in iraq and now in syria have had an impact. they've degraded isil and the khorasan's capabilities. we're going after these groups so they can't threaten america. i will say, as the president has made clear, this is going to be a long campaign. it doesn't happen overnight. in addition to the military strikes we're going to be taking, we're going to use this as an opportunity to get at the core causes of why people want to join the khorasan

. >> joining me now here in studio is marie harf. glad to see you. >> good to be here. >> big question here. as you know, yesterday secretary kerry said iran has a role to play. go back seven days prior and that wasn't necessarily the tone of his statements there. actually saying that iran's been a sponsor of terror. what has changed in seven days? >> nothing's changed. to be very clear, we won't be coordinating with iran when it comes to military action against isil. but i think what the secretary was saying is that iran can play a more constructive role than we've seen them play in the past in iraq. if they support this new inclusive government, support the iraqi security forces, not militias or anyone else in iraq, that's how we can strengthen them. >> you have to understand the circumstances under which things are said. a week ago when secretary kerry was talking about iran, he was sitting across the table, wasn't he, from a turkish diplomat? and let's face it, turkey, iran, there are some difficulties there, certainly. so might

listen to what marie harf said yesterday. >> there was no standdown.y before they went into a situation that they were unaware of what they were going to be encountering on the other side. to be clear, there was no stand down order given from anyone. there has been no evidence to support that claim throughout this entire process. it keeps coming up. every time it does, we will keep saying there is no evidence. >> every time we roll a sound bite from marie harf, it is something completely ludicrous or dishonest. how do people like that become a spokesman for the state department? >> she is a puppet doing what she is paid to do. >> she is paid to inform the rest of us. you are absolutely right. it's annoying. >> comes from the top. >> if you want to watch that special, 5:00 p.m. tonight on the fox news channel. right after the huckabee show at 9:00 p.m. >> bret says he's done a lot of these specials and this is the most moving one he's ever done. that's saying a lot. >>> other stories making headlines. u.s. coast guard in search for wreckage of a small p

marie harf says, too bad we can't say the same about the o'reilly factor with -- she says, state departmentn explains foreign policy with intelligence and class. all right, now, then we've got another sound. guys, do we have that? where there is a criticism of bill o'reilly? >> he looks to me looks, to me, befuddled. jay carney, you may not have liked him, but he looks like he understood the process. mr. ernest doesn't look like he has a whole lot of credibility. he just looks uncertain to me. >> we don't have the sound. they come out and say bill o'reilly is a sexist. i apologize to the viewers about that. what we have played is bill o'reilly clearly criticizing men and women. if you say a woman is in over her depth, does that make you a sexist? >> no. he calls everybody out. the fact is the state department should be dealing with the international community and not attacking fox news. they need to be dealing with all they need to be dealing with all these international crises. [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 million people. [ susan ] my p

earlier today, state department deputy spokesperson marie harf spoke about the issue with steve kornacki their capabilities by taking direct military action against them. that doesn't mean they don't continue to plot and plan. i think you'll see more military action against them going forward. that's why we've all said this is going to be a long fight here. no one day of air strikes completely takes away a terrorist group's capabilities or their intent. >> joining me now, evan coleman. evan, do you agree with the tsa director's assessment there, the khorasan group is a clear and present danger? >> there are a number of different groups that have aspired to do this. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula also tried to do this. we've seen the amount of focus that's been pegged to aqap. what's interesting is just within the last hour, the group that this unit was part of, al qaeda's official franchise in irr is, just issued an official statement responding and cond n condemning the crusader raids on their bases. it's clear that nusra doesn't distinguish between the foreign fighters that it has t

marie harf? >> bill o'reilly does not like men. >> that was less than ten days ago that he said that, okay? >> august 26th. >> and if you think he's a sexist, how many women are there that he's in complete dialogue, debate with every single night, brilliant women that he is there discussing the top issues with. >> right. >> and you know, he's been quite fair across the board. but was that comment by marie harf? >> meanwhile, ten minutes after the hour. another fox news alert spans the world, the queen of comedy, joan rivers, dead here in new york city yesterday at the age of 81. >> her daughter, melissa, here making the heartbreaking decision to take her off life support, saying "my mother's greatest joy in life was to make people laugh. although that is difficult to do right now, i know her final wish would be that we would be returning to laughter soon." >> rivers went into cardiac arrest last week during a routine procedure, under investigation by new york health officials this morning. many r

. >> marie harf, thank you. and joining me now is general spider marks. clearly they are trying to say is it a diplomatic issue and don't worry about it. but why would iran have done this? >> erin. she didn't say it was a diplomatic issue. it was a bureaucratic issue. which is a little more troubling. i view this from the intelligence guy's perspective. the iranians probably had the manifest and i imagine they have access to the manifest. you have 100 folks transiting from afghanistan all all of them are contractors and former folks in uniform and they got a hit against their database. and went, whoa, maybe they saw a couple of names they wanted to check and forced them to land and did a double check on the names and released them. i can see from that perspective why this might have occurred. and it ended up a negative event. but what concerns me is where is the outrage? >> none. they are doing the opposite. every question is don't have any outrage at it. that's my question to you, general. so they just let it go? are they doing the right thing by letting

marie harf says "too bad we can't say the same about the o'reilly factor.ate department spokesperson explains foreign policy with intelligence and class. all right. now then we've got another sound, guys. do we have that? where there is a criticism of bill o'reilley? >> josh earnest, okay. he looks to me to be befuddled. i mean, jay carnie you may not have liked him but he looked like he understood the process. mr. earnest doesn't look like he has a lot of credibility. it that the buzz in the press corps? >> i don't expect you to hammer him but he just looks uncertain to me. >> all right. apparently we don't have the sound. but what happens is they come out and they say bill o'reilley is a sexist. i apologize to the viewers about that. and what we played was bill o'reilley clearly criticizing men and women. but if you say that a woman is in over her depth, does that make you a sexist? >> absolutely not. first of all, we all know bill o'reilley. he calls you either pinning or or patriot. he calls everybody out. the state department should be dealing with the

speaking with megyn kelly last night marie harf said something interesting. >> if we don't ultimately send in american combat troops and i quote we're going to lose. >> i'm not exactly sure what lose means, but what i would counter with is that the ultimate solution to fighting isil is not american combat troops on the ground. we couldn't prevent terrorism when we he had over 100,000 troops in iraq. >> here now to racket is geraldo rivera. so ms. megyn was quoting one of our fox news military analyst and it's pretty much taken for granted that you are going to need some kind of ground intrusion on the terrorist not only isis but the others to really wipe them out or make them impotent. she doesn't know what lose means. that kind of thing. doesn't that come off as sophomoreic. >> the spokesperson for the state department. what did you call them? tridelts. >> i didn't call them tridelts but i implied they weren't answering directly the questions. >> let me rather than tackle the identity of the spokes people for the state department, let me talk from military correspondent's point of vi

. >> marie harf, thank you. >>> we turn to another story making headlines. some dangerous weather out west. tous of firefighters are struggling to contain a dozen wildfires in northern california. the worst among them is the king fire. it's now grown to roughly 28,000 acres. it continues to spread northwest of sacramento forcing more evacuations and threatening more than 2,000 homes. that as air and ground resources continue to be challenged by what is significantly difficult terrain to fight fires. meantime, the west is also facing that severe storm once known as hurricane odile which battered the baja california peninsula on sunday and monday and now has parts of the southwest under water. they're dealing with record breaking rain and flash flooding. odile hit el paso, texas, particularly hard. nearly 50 rescues and other emergencies were reported. thousands still without power. clearly, this one is not over yet. nbc's dylan dreyer is live for us. you can see all that water behind you. >> good morning, yes, you can see this water just rushing here. this is

state department deputy spokesman marie harf is with me now. let's all listen to these strong words from the president at that summit. >> we are going to degrade and ultimately defeat isil the same way that we have gone after al qaeda. we have been very systematic and methodical in going after these kinds of organizations that may threaten u.s. personnel and the homeland. and that deliberation allows us to do it right. >> that deliberation, the president wants to get this right. can it get done still? is there still the feeling it can be done without forces, u.s. forces on the ground? >> well, t.j., we've been clear that we are not going to put combat troops on the ground in iraq, in syria, to go after isis. what you heard the president outline very clearly yesterday was the way in which you go after terrorist groups. first, you push them back from territory they hold. we're starting to do that in iraq. as you said, more strikes against isis just today. you take their leadership off the battlefield. you take out their capabilities to plan large

marie harf is not using the word war. susan rice has not used war.ve josh earnst at the white house and department of defense willing to use the word. what's going on? i'm confused? total semantics, eric. the truth of the matter is we are having a limited military strike in the northern syria and northern iraq. and that basically is what it boils down to here. we could all agree it's the right thing for us to do. and the fact that we're arguing over the word war is just mind numbing to me. >> why wouldn't they use it? john kerry has asked three or four times are we at war? and he kept saying oh, counter terror. are are we at war? when you see beheaded americans on a video, i think that would be considered act of war against americans. if we are frankly sending over hundreds of sorties bombing isis that's not war? tell that to the people getting bombed. >> eric, listen, the other day the last time real war was it 1942 during world war ii. thatss watt -- was the last time we declared war. >> you are touching on something that's important here. the reas

. >> state department's marie harf, thank you. have a good day. >> you too. >> we're learning more today about the little known syrian based khorasan group and the terror threat it may pose to american travelers in the u.s. and abroad. most americans only heard about this group after they were targeted by isis positions by u.s. air strikes earlier this week. yesterday head of the transportation safety administration said khorasan has been learning from al qaeda's past bombing attempts. let's listen. >> so we have another group now that has been looking at some of those issues and doing the research and development and testing of devices that they believe will be successful in getting through some airports' security en route some place to a location in europe or the u.s. >> kristen welker who was at the white house. he said the khorasan presents a clear and present danger. how seriously is the white house taking the threats posed by this group? >> oh, very seriously, and you heard the tsa director, john pistil map out just how seri

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. >> marie harf, thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you, wolf. >>> still ahead, the breaking newse're following here. the comedian joan rivers has sadly passed away a week after suffering cardiac arrest during a routine medical procedure. now serious questions are being asked about her treatment. >>> the life and the work of the legendary comedian and the fashion critic. >> i hate old people. i say i hate, hate, hate, oh, the bodies. the bodies. enjoy your bodies now. this is how i go to the bathroom. narrator: summer. you know it can't last forever. but that's okay. because a fresh start awaits. with exciting worlds to explore, and challenges yet unmet, new friendships to forge, and old ones to renew. it's more than a job. and they're more than just our students. so welcome back, to the students, and to the educators. ready to teach. and ready to learn. dad: he's our broker. he helps looks after all our money. kid: do you pay him? dad: of course. kid: how much? dad: i don't know exactly. kid: what if you're not happy? does he have to pay you back? dad: nope. kid: why not? dad: it