claire mccaskill andwi join me claire mccaskill andwi join me brief commercial break.eico, saving people money on more than just car insurance. ♪ geico, saving people money on more than just car insurance. >>> joining me is senator john thune, republican of south dakota and senator claire mccaskill, democrat of missouri and welcome to both of you to "meet the press." this is where the action is right now n the senate. senator thun, as a republican in here, and someone who has reportedly in play, what has to be in the agreement to get you the yes? >> well, i think that a couple of things, david. first, no taxes. spending reductions at least equal to the amount of the debt limit would be increased by dollar for dollar and a pathway to getting a result on entitlement the elements that a lot of republicans are going to be looking for. >> and you heard david plouffe saying that mcconnell is saying no tax increases in the deal, and that is true, but still again another committee looking at making the hard decisions about entitlements and tax reform, and the president, you kn

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missouri senator, claire mccaskill, can you believe it?rat, but since she's been elected she's been talking like a righty. on tuesday, she really stepped over the line in my opinion. a local television station followed her to a factory in missouri. a reporter asked the senator if she supported extending unemployment benefits to the middle class tax cuts. >> i'm not for extending unemployment benefits any further. the payroll tax cuts, i'm always for tax cuts for working folks because i think that helps the consuming economy. >> economists say every dollar spent on unemployment benefits creates $1.61 in the american economy. after her comment senator mccaskill's office is on wipeup duty. >> claritins to fully support unemployment benefits for people who have lost their jobs. unfortunately, expanding benefits beyond 99 weeks is unaffordable. there is staunch opposition in the house. she can't blame her position on the house. if she had high unemployment in her state, she would fight for the 99ers in her state. for her to make that statement

the president will get the black vote, but will clear mccaskill, bill nelson? are you pressuring them, talking to them at all about how to put some more attention on this issue? >> yes, our executive committee has sat down with senator reid, majorityeader read, and we have discussed in great detail proposals we have submitted on the house side and to the white house. that would allow some attention to be given to the depression- level unemployment numbers in the black community. depression levels. i mean, what group in america with those kinds of numbers could be ignored? but yes, we're putting pressure on the senate side, and we believe we're getting some support for the things we are pushing. the problem is the senate has those arcane rules, and now you have to get 60 votes to get anything across. it is unfortunate. we have introduced, we, the congressional black caucus, 40 different pieces of legislation designed to create jobs. but the reality of washington, which i hope your viewers understand, is that majority means everything, and because democrats are i

shocker i'm not shocked i'm assuming that you're not shocked that at the same time we heard claire mccaskill who actually asked for this report to be commissioned two years ago saying that she was shocked at the result is congress blind how can they remain so blind to what's going on they're being very disingenuous here on every year the of the pentagon's own inspector general issues a disclaimer on pentagon's accounts. and the it disclaims any responsibility because of the view enormous amount of substantiated or unsupported expenditures these irregularities can reach the value of of hundreds of billions of dollars sometimes over a trillion dollars every year and every several years congress and the members of congress that this must stop there has to be reform there has to be more transparency and nothing ever changes that we see nothing will so like i said i think that probably we have to understand how it is that we got to this point right because this wartime contracting that really only is a tiny bit of it that isn't even including the rest of the war spending that we do that is new cl

senator mccaskill. but listening to all of that, maybe president obama should call for lower taxes on the rich, and then the republicans would raise taxes on the rich and then we'd have that issue out of the way. but i think there is something very weird about what they're doing. patent reform. i mean, they have worked for a long time on that. that's a totally bipartisan thing. most of the arguments don't even cross party lines. the notion that they're going to block that, i mean, if obama wanted to give everyone, you know, a hot fudge sundae, they would attack him because they would say it will raise cholesterol, even if he gave them lipitor too. i mean, it's very strange. >> well, i don't know that anybody -- i haven't seen anybody pointing out that patent reform and the trade deals, that the president is advocating now for, are really directly there the republican jobs plan. it's not much. it's 10 pages, including a lot of big font and one page that's just a picture and another page that half the pag

senator jim webb, claire mccaskill, susan collins and joe lieberman and u.s. representative darrell issa and john tyranny and we appreciate the many members of the media who followed our work and described it to the public and one final point the commissioners wanted to make sure we expressed, we are in awe of our men and women who serve in the military. we pay incredible respect to their sacrifice, those that have been injured, the families that have lost loved ones. but we also want to include in that list equally the contractors who have lost their lives and the contractors who have been wounded. there have been thousands who have lost their lives and the sad is, it's almost like they have been expendable. they haven't gotten the kind of attention that their deaths require. so we just want to say thank you to the men and women who serve overseas, both in our government, in the military and as well as contractors for our government. we're going to have 1-minute comments from the six commissioners behind me. we were all equal partners. there was really no fir

a lot of folks like claire mccaskill who are trying to woo independents, trying to woo deficit hawks. so this certainly if you are going to sell this vote, the best way to settle it is, well, i'm a deficit hawk and that's why i'm supporting this deal. >> and apparently, andrea, the best way to sell it as a republican on the house side is to put together a power point presentation with talking points to give your members a chance to go home, who may be on the fence and say, look. look at all the things we got. >> and they did get a lot. let's face it. they got some very deep cuts up front and for a promise of further cuts down the road. no guarantee at all that those revenue measures will be considered even though the congressional super committee will have the option of considering revenue measures. and those wouldn't kick in until 2013. they got a lot. what the president got was a longer term deal than was originally offered. >> so, luke, logistically, we're hearing remarks from john boehner who says, by the way, that this isn't the deal he wanted, but maybe not the greatest deal in

a lot of folks like claire mccaskill who are trying to woo independents, trying to woo deficit hawks. so this certainly if you are going to sell this vote, the best way to settle it is, well, i'm a deficit hawk and that's why i'm supporting this deal. >> and apparently, andrea, the best way to sell it as a republican on the house side is to put together a power point presentation with talking points to give your members a chance to go home, who may be on the fence and say, look. look at all the things we got. >> and they did get a lot. let's face it. they got some very deep cuts up front and for a promise of further cuts down the road. no guarantee at all that those revenue measures will be considered even though the congressional super committee will have the option of considering revenue measures. and those wouldn't kick in until 2013. they got a lot. what the president got was a longer term deal than was originally offered. >> so, luke, logistically, we're hearing remarks from john boehner who says, by the way, that this isn't the deal he wanted, but maybe not the greatest deal in

reason to have that is that you have 23 democratic seats up for re-election and folks like claire mccaskill and jon tester who are trying to woo the independents and trying to woo the deficit hawks and so this is certainly, if you are going to sell this vote, the best way you can sell it as a democrat is that i'm a deficit hawk, and that is why i'm supporting this deal. >> and apparently, andrea, the best way to sell it as a republican on the house side is to put together a powerpoint presentation with talking points to give your members a chance to go home who may be on the fence and say, look, look at a all of the things that we got. >> sure. and they did get a lot. let's face it. they got some very deep cuts up front, and for a promise of further cuts down the road and no guarantee at all that those revenue measures will be considered even though the congressional super committee will have the option of considering revenue measures and those would not kick in until 2013 and they got a lot, and the president got a longer-term deal than originally offered. >> and luke, logistically, we are

reason to have that is that you have 23 democratic seats up for re-election and folks like claire mccaskill and jon tester who are trying to woo the independents and trying to woo the deficit hawks and so this is certainly, if you are going to sell this vote, the best way you can sell it as a democrat is that i'm a deficit hawk, and that is why i'm supporting this deal. >> and apparently, andrea, the best way to sell it as a republican on the house side is to put together a powerpoint presentation with talking points to give your members a chance to go home who may be on the fence and say, look, look at a all of the things that we got. >> sure. and they did get a lot. let's face it. they got some very deep cuts up front, and for a promise of further cuts down the road and no guarantee at all that those revenue measures will be considered even though the congressional super committee will have the option of considering revenue measures and those would not kick in until 2013 and they got a lot, and the president got a longer-term deal than originally offered. >> and luke, logistically, we are

after many discussions with senator claire mccaskill of missouri, when expressed similar concerns as a member of the armed services committee, we introduced this legislation in 2007. we had to, like in all legislative proposals, it did on some areas we believe in strongly, such as retroactive accountability for some of the abuses that had taken place. we did not get that. we did not get the ability to have a subpoena. but what we did get was the structure that was put into place in this commission, and just as importantly, we got an agreement that this would be bipartisan, and that it would be energetic and that it would come to us with the types of recommendations that could prevent these sorts of actions and abuses in the future. this is what we are receiving formally today. i wanted to come down here and endorse the quality of the performance of all of these individuals. christopher shays, michael tivo, the cochairs, come highly qualified. christopher shays spent years in congress, michael was a member of the defense contract agency. clark kent ervin, a former inspector general of

on top of that, two senators from missouri, mccaskill and blunts, are worried that the aid that they would like to see for the tornadoes and floods in joplin will be on hold as they take care of irene. they do not want to see that happen. they're a little upset about the east coast perhaps getting all this and do not want to be forgotten about. >> all right, patrick. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> take care. >> we'll see you later. >>> ahead, "newsweek" and "daily beast" editor tina brown will be here. and chuck todd with the headlines out of washington, d.c. and of course we'll needle him about the miami hurricanes again. every time a local business opens its doors or creates another laptop bag or hires another employee, it's not just good for business -- it's good for the entire community. at bank of america, we know the impact that local businesses have on communities, so we're helping them with advice from local business experts and extending $18 billion in credit last year. that's how we're helping set opportunity in motion. [ male announcer ] it's been a good year for th

. >> senator mccaskill. >> thank you. let me start from this and look at this from a birds eye view. it appears to me that it's important for an infrastructure bank to be one of two things. either to shift risk, or to access capital. would anybody disagree with those two reasons why we want to do this in the first place? okay. is there another reason i am missing besides access to capital our risk shifting? >> i would say one more. it gives us an opportunity to do a really rigorous competition and project analysis and use benefit cost analysis and the type of tools that i think, you know, senator rockefeller was noting in other countries they've been doing this for a long time. we been doing it less and just because import we had a highway trust fund until recently was pretty adequately funded. but this gives us a chance at the federal and state and local level to really improve our analytic skills and a better job of projects election and funny projects that will get the most value for money. i think an infrastructure ba

and i would like to add a footnote to the discussion that senator mccaskill initiated there a moment ago and you started touching on it. one of the other benefits i see from an infrastructure bank that has come out of the whole ppp experience in the last 20 years, there has been a tremendous amount of innovation in the project management, the delivery systems, as you were referring to, on budget, on time and i see the freight intermodal connector type projects being ripe for these kind of funding situations from the bank. so i think that will be an additional benefit besides, you know, the profit and access to capital that the nation would gain by doing this whole idea. >> all right. i can not thank you enough. again i'm shocked that we didn't have this 10 years ago but can't help that. you have introduced a fundamentally important concept into additional ways to deal with our national infrastructure. one of my observations about the congress as a whole is that in spite of, sort of thee logical statements, people, since people back home really care about infrastructure, and they're r