mr. burton the chairman of the california party to resign. kate? >> chuck todd in north carolina tonight. >>> president obama spent this holiday on the campaign trail with a stop in a key swing state today before moving on to see flood damage in louisiana. kristen welker is traveling with the president and joins us from new orleans. good evening, kristen. >> reporter: good evening, kate. we are in new orleans where president obama took a detour from the campaign trail to meet with those affected by hurricane isaac and to survey the most heavily impacted areas. louisiana is a republican stronghold. he has no chance of winning this state in november but if the lessons of katrina taught this administration anything it's that mishandling this type of crisis could be politically damaging especially two months before election day. >> i want to commend everyone here for the extraordinary work they've done in making sure lives were saved, that although there was tremendous property damage people were in a position to get out quickly and as you can see folk

mr. burton, i guess, i am confused about what nile cafe claims to be. is it a cafe? i mean you can't be a cafe and a tobacco shop, as i understand it. so what is it? >> well, in terms of what it does, it does -- >> commissioner lazarus: it operates under a license as something. >> right. it operates under a license as a restaurant, is the main license. but it also has a tobacco license to sell the product. >> commissioner lazarus: but it's not a tobacco shop, is that -- >> under the -- the department is arguing that you cannot be a tobacco shop and serve food at the same time. that's the language of the statute. >> commissioner lazarus: well, if they're arguing it because it's in the statute, then -- >> i'm just telling you -- i'm not saying one way or the other. i'm just telling you their position. >> commissioner lazarus: and is it legitimate to argue that while there may be some ambiguity allowing someone to continue while it gets resolved you can make a similar argument that it cease happening while it is being resolved? >> i'm sorry. >> commissioner lazarus: con

mr. burton pointed out -- and say, mr. burton pointed out from the doj has been of cooperating with groups like media matters with a spin on stories so they'll come out in a positive manner. and i imagine the press office and all of doj has been concerned about that. it actually troubles me there is such a political asset to what goes on in the doj about executive agencies, you hope to doj would be the one about politics. my question is do you know doj share this report prior to its release yesterday with any outside groups, and or, who within the doj would've made substantive changes to the report? >> we provided for purposes of our comments and review a draft of the requirement. we allowed the department internally to share with people who had relevant information, but to tightly control who saw it and it was not to be shared. >> so media matters did invent this. >> they should not have been if they have been allowed to come it would've been a violation of the understanding we had about the review. >> okay, great. i've be

mr. burton: i'm disappointed today, we passed a c.r. for six months and it contained language in there that was supposedly designed to keep libya and egypt from getting funds. my colleagues overwhelmingly voted for it. i do not criticize them for that but i do feel very strongly in my heart that we made a mistake by not, in the rules committee, passing an amendment which would make sure that the money in that bill for foreign assistance did not go to libya or egypt. i read the document they put out and it does not prohibit the money from getting to libya and egypt. the muslim brotherhood runs egypt. they hate the united states. and the president has said he want to model his country after iran. in libya, they killed our ambassador and scaled the walls they burned our flag they did it in egypt and held up the al qaeda flag. and we're going to give them money. it makes no sense. and if the american people were paying attention to this right now, they would raise hell. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentl

mr. burton's doing a very good job on putting a spin on a convention where i think you're going to see a and the like, the economy, worst recovery of any economy in american history from a sharp downturn, even during the depression you had a sharper upturn when it turned in 1932-'33. they'll try to put a happy face on it and even though they're not attacking bunnies i don't think they'll make headway in attracting independent voters. grievance politics doesn't ultimately play in america. >> what do you say, bill? >> i think steve forbes is a smart financial guy so he knows that yes this is, this recovery has been sort of at the same pace as all the different recoveries that happened over the course of the last century since the great depression and it was the deepest hole we've been in and yes it takes a long time to dig our way out but the president helped to create 4.5 million new jobs since the recovery started and creating jobs, not losing jobs now. the economy is growing, not shrinking. if the american people decide they see the convention and what president obama has to say and wan

mr. burton, for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader mr. burton: thank you, madam speaker. i'm not going to take the full 30 minutes, but i have been in this congress for a long, long time and i have been frustrated a lot and i think maybe i have learned a little bit and for any of my colleagues who are in their offices watching on television, i thought i would make a few comments about some of the things that i hope that they will take as a little bit of a lesson for them down the road. the first thing that -- i have been on the foreign affairs committee for 30 years, and the first thing i learned is that you can't make the world over in our image. no matter how hard we try. there are different cultures, different people, different religions. tribal, all kinds of things. and when we go into another part of the world and try to make them like us, we cause a lot of problems. we caught a lot of lives. and we lose a lot of money. we should always realize in the back of our minds that we should do what's in the interest of the united states of a

mr. burton: i have been on the foreign affairs committee now for about 30 years and i have never seen anything like what we have seen over the northern tier of africa. all the way across the northern tier we have seen the spring that they are talking about and how things are changing and how democracy is coming. the fact of the matter is iran is taking advantage of what's going on over there by sending interimmediatearies in all those countries that undermine them. i was in the persian gulf recently and there is absolutely no question that iran is doing everything they can to undermine all those governments over there. and when you look at what happened in egypt, with the muslim brotherhood taking over, we in this country ought to be very much aware that this is not the end of it. it's not going to go away. so the administration or the new president, whoever it is, takes office in january, they are going to have to have a very strong foreign policy because we still get about 35% of our energy from that region. this is not going to end right now. it's going to go on. and we have to be prepared.

mr. burton: you know, mr. speaker, recently we passed a continuing resolution to take care of funding of the government until next march. and one of the things that concerned a lot of us was, is any of that money in that continuing resolution going to go to help the government of egypt or libya or any of the other countries where we see all that civil unrest and all that horrible acts of murder taking place? and i never did get an answer, so i would just like to say to my colleagues who are going to be here -- i'm retiring at the end of this year -- we should not give one dime, not one penny to any country that tries to undermine the united states' interests around the world and we should not give one penny to anybody that constantly tries to spread radical fundamentalist muslim beliefs in this world. shahrya law is something we can't live with and we need to let them know very clearly if they want to work with the united states, fine, but they're not getting any money from us if this continues. this world is

mr. burton pointed out, the dot has been accused of cooperating with outside groups like media matters so they will come out a denture a positive manner. i imagine the press office is concerned about that. it troubles me there is such a political facet to what goes on in the doj. you would hope they would be most above politics. do you know if the doj shared this report prior to its release with any outside groups, or who within the doj might have made substantive changes to the report? >> we provide it for purposes of our comment and review. we allowed the department internally to share it with people who had relevant information but tightly controlled who saw it, and it would not to be shared outside. >> media matters did not get this? >> they should not have, and it would have been a violation about the understanding we had about the review. >> i have been approached by commentators and constituents alike. political motives behind allowing something like fast and furious to continue. some have claimed there may have been a desire at some levels to create a public outcry for stricter gu