make that point, susan page, and we have read that story and you did break it many years ago, mike rodgersintelligence chair, the counterpart on the house side to dianne feinstein has just talked about the fact that he says terror plot, at least one terror plot was averted because of this, of this whole fisa law. let's watch. >> i can tell you why this program is important. that within the last few years, this program was used to stop a program, excuse me, stop a terrorist attack in the united states. we know that. it's, it's important, it fills in a little seam that we have. and it's used to make sure that there is not an international nexus to any terrorism event that they may believe is ongoing in the united states. >> so far, lindsay graham and mike rodgers, two republicans who are not reluctant to criticize this white house, are coming to the administration's defense. let me ask you about something that was revealed today from an investigation. internal investigation about a leak involving the identity of s.e.a.l. team 6 in the osama bin laden raid and it turns out that it was an unwi

the republican chairman of the house intelligence committee mike rodgers discussed the legislation on thursday. >> we offer today at least one step in what we think can be a broader effort to bring china to the realization that it is -- will no longer be profitable to steal american ingenuity to artificially compete against u.s. companies. >> rogers said some items now being manufactured in china may have used designs stolen from a major u.s. company. >>> now, to help us understand how the chinese leader might address a variety of issues at the summit, including cyber security, we have a report from beijing. >> reporter: president xi's predecessor hu gin too was in office more than three years before he made his first visit to the u.s. xi traveled there within the first three months. chinese media say this shows influence has grown. some experts say the meeting give the two leaders an opportunity to better understand each other. >> it's very focused on building up personal relations, improving personal trust, and laying a more solid background and foundation for improving the top-leve

mike rodgers came out to talk to reporters, very strong in support of the ability to conduct this kind of data collection and saying over the past several years there was a domestic terrorism incident that was thwarted because of this ability. its details are still classified but that u.s. intelligence was able to thwart a domestic terror attack and will endeavour to work with those folks to get this situation declassified today. he hopes to provide more intelligence about it and more information about it in order to explain what he says is the reason why the intelligence community needs to have access to this kind of data mining capabilities. >> thank you very much. more money flowing from steven cohen's sac capital. jim stewart wrote a terrific piece about this. they both join us now, welcome to both of you. >> i'm going start with you. you did pen a terrific piece. tell me how you think it's all going to play out. >> there is no question if you look at this through the lens of gains theory, the rational choice would be to cooperate. unfortunately the real world is not a world of pee

. >> mike rodgers, a republican, came out before cameras just a little while ago. >> the reason they use this and i can tell you why the program is important. within the last few years this program was used to stop a program program. >> by looking at phone calls and tracking to see who was calling who and establishing a web of context of potential terrorists. that's a situation of broad defense. we have heard some dissenting voices. a lot of it would have excluded the content of communications, names, addresses, our financial information of subscribers or customer customers. if this would have happened, verizon would have been in no position to resist. >> the government comes calling you're going to do what they ask. thank you very much for joining us. is government snooping like this really necessary for our national security? is it worth it? your next guest thinks so. >> if i put a camera in everybody's living room and bedro bedroom. >> the information that they collected that is legal and constitutional has been ruled upon by the various courts did not do that. all they did. >> i

this is a serious policy debate but in the political forum we saw today, mike rodgers a republican. michele bachmann going after snowden and taking the president's side. >> i saw dana's coverage. the president is winning. if you look at the polls, the president is winning. he keeps pushing a couple points that are important. nobody is listening to your phone calls and reading e-mails, and i think that's important, and checks and balances. that is critical. we're a nation of laws. again, under bush and cheney, we're a nation of man, not laws. we were doing things not au autorised by congress. you can say justin bieber is like dale earnhardt jr. because they both drive 100 miles an hour, justin bieber does it where it's illegal on a street but bush does it on a track. that's a huge difference. >> it does show the american people support this program, the idea that the government might have to do these things to fight terrorism but we have a clear majority, around 60% saying they think this president might be taking it too far. so how does he balance that saying -- to explain and impro

disgusted with washington as a whole and i think that's part of the republican strategy, again mike rodgers the chairman of the house intelligence committee saying it's not really the specifics of any of these scandals, it's the whole atmosphere of scandal. >> but -- >> this is what you talked about the other day. we talked about this conflation. they just keep trying to -- it's basically insinuation. there's a scandal. well, the details don't matter, but scandal, intimidation. use these big words without being able to prove them. >> it didn't work with clinton, obviously, bill clinton's approval rating held up remarkably well back in the '90s, considering the political environment we're talking about, when republicans were pummelling him every night. take a look at the chart. even in the throes of the lewinsky scandal in the '90s, bill clinton's rating never went, disapproval never went above 35. he wasn't getting jammed by the voters, what likely saved clinton was this, an unemployment rate which dropped to around 4% at that time. now take a look at obama's approval rating. it tracks fair

mike rodgers, republican intelligence committee says it's fine. dianne feinstein, says it's fine. >> let me interrupt you here. i interviewed the author of the patriot act. he says that this fishing expedition is not within the law. that it is not allowed. it's against the spirit of the law, and the written words in the law. your thoughts as a lawyer. >> well, you know, i'm not an expert on the fpatriot act. there are some lawyers i respect who think it is within the law. i don't think we ought to turn everything on jumping to conclusions about whether something is constitutional or statutorily allowed. we need to find out. we need to study that and separate our emotions. i hate the gathering of this data. i can't say just because i hate it, it's not authorized under the law. jim sensenbrenner, i really like him, i trust he's telling the truth when he ez says he didn't intend for the act to authorize it. did the act in writing actually authorize it? >> that's a great point. so -- >> amen david, he passed the patriot act. >> oh, you agree -- >> no,

joining me with reaction, michigan congressman mike rodgers. congressman, thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> i view the taliban as one of the most sadistic regimes in history, with their enforcement of sharia law. is this a good idea? >> i don't think so, and there hasn't been much consultation with congress about reopening the office in qatar and then recognizing them other than what we've read in the media, which is concerning enough. and think about this, sean. this is an organization, the taliban, who's closed in afghanistan over the last few months, over 500 children's schools. we can't have those kids getting educated. the majority of those are girls schools, the same organization that just a few weeks ago poisoned little girls going to school to prove the point that they didn't believe that girls should be able to get an education. it's hard to understand why the president thinks that is the right cause of action with no preconditions about what that negotiation should even look like. including, by the way, supporting

meanwhile all of these republicans, republican chairman in the house key committees, peter king, mike rodgersefending these programs after listening to president obama and before that, senator obama say some not so nice things about these surveillance programs. how does that feel? >> there was a concern, all right? there was a concern among us in the bush administration. we felt comfortable with these programs. jake, we thought they were necessary. we believed they were lawful, they were appropriate and they were effective, there's great concern on our part that the way candidate obama had spoken. that some of these programs would be stopped. the fact of the matter is, most of them have not. some of them have been expanded. that's actually really good news. that's not something we, the former administration need to spike the football about and say i told you so. we should just take a sense of satisfaction that what we were doing, once candidate obama became president obama. he saw that these were of great value and frankly, were being very carefully done. the shorthand version about this, jak

the fact is, joe, you have the chairman of the two intelligence communities, dianne feinstein, mike rodgersisan, saying, we know, we approve, this is what the government should be doing. we are on board. >> chris matthews? >> i'm always skeptic. joe, we'll start a fight now, but i'm surprised you use that word government like it's one institution, like it's some monolithic thing we have nothing to do with. we have an elected government, reelected in the u.s. congress every year. i have tremendous faith for dianne feinstein, and i have for decades. >> can i interrupt? >> no. because you just used the word government. you know the u.s. government is made up of branches -- >> does that disqualify me from asking about dianne feinstein? dianne feinstein knew about water boarding. she was briefed in 2003, 2004, and suddenly "the washington post" does a story on it. everybody runs outs of the capitol with their hair on fire, and they're shocked, shocked, shocked. we've seen this time and time again when we're at war, you've got politicians in washington, d.c., that give the federal government what

support for the nsa up on capitol hill, including from house intelligence committee mike ronlers, who came out -- rodgers who came out late in the day who said this is a program, the verizon program in particular that has already saved american lives, take a listen. >> the reason they use this, i can tell you why this program is important, within the last few years, this program was used to stop a program, excuse me, stop a terrorist attack in the united states. we know that. it's important. >> reporter: and, guy, i am told that we have just within the past couple of seconds now got an statement from apple. let me read this to you because i'm just literally getting it here now on my iphone. apple is saying, we have never heard of prism. we do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order. so, larry, there will be a lot more to this. apple now saying they have never heard of this prism program. apsome one -- apple was named in the washington post story. what it said were power point slides from inside the nsa d