robert gibbs is the president's point man. why does his boss keep ripping cable chatter and rush and sean and glenn. our conversation at the white house. >>> in search of oprah. kitty kelley takes on the talk show queen and says much of the media is afraid to challenge her. is the author's new and gossipy biography fair? >>> second act. conan o'brien going from the "tonight show" to basic cable? is that a smart move? >>> plus, charging for tweets. will corporate advertising ruin twitter? >>> a major chunk of washington journalism is filled in through the prism of the white house, which is why you see so many reporters standing right here on the north lawn. and a good bit of that coverage involves the man whose job it is to deal with the media. as anyone who's ever watched robert gibbs in the briefing room well knows that can get pretty contentious. >> didn't expect to have this package within a party about the public option? >> again, contrived almost entirely by you guys. >> with all due respect, and i sympathize with you try

the spokesman robert gibbs says the white house was continuing to watch what karzai would say in the future before it made a final decision on that meeting, although he said of the meeting was still going forward. i think that is a natural reaction from what sounds like very outlandish comments coming from karzai, including one that has been denied by his spokesman just today, but he was reported by three sources in the meeting in kabul who said the pressure was not -- from the west, he might consider joining the taliban. host: this also came in part with the president's recent visit there. guest: it all got its start when the president obama the week ago sunday flew unannounced to cobble -- -- kabul. we don't know what they talked about but the security adviser james jones said of the airplane that it was time karzai was "seized" to eradicate corruption and the government. that has been a message they obama administration has been less gently sending to karzai since he left office. but must have set him off and some fashion. perhaps he felt he lost face and needed to regain his stan

robert gibbs goes after mismegyn kelly.tor brown from massachusetts show up at the boston tea party rally. check is next. >> bill: back of the book segment tonight, reality check where we search for the truth in all the wrong places. check one. miss megyn kelly has gotten the attention of white house spokesman robert gibbs is angry that something happened on miss megyn's broadcast. >> the president signed the stark treaty last week. and there was a lot of debate about whether us reducing our nuclear warheads was making this country less safe. and then the anchor disappeared and for several seconds there was a 1960's video footage of a nuclear test in a mushroom cloud. >> bill: mr. gibbs was treeferg a segment tease on america life. >> president obama heading for the check republic as we speak set to sign a new nuclear pack with russia. now the critics are asking will the new deal leave the u.s. defenseless until it's too late. coming up next hour. ment? explosion] >> bill: so, was that unfair to president obama? you make th

at goldman sachs, robert gibbs said nobody at the white house or treasury department had any idea the charges were in the work. bret? >> bret: major garrett live on the north lawn. thank you. get more on the goldman sachs charges from fox business network correspondent peter barnes. good evening, pete. >> reporter: when you buy a new dishwasher, tv or car, the government says the manufacturer must by law provide you with basic information about it. just look at toyota right now. it's in big trouble because the government says it failed to tell customers about problems with sticky gas pedals. the same thing with goldman sachs. the government says it broke the law when it sold investment products to two european banks since 2007. and that it did not tell them basic required information. the products were securities backed by billions in subprime mortgages. goldman did not tell the banks that a very savvy investment manager john paulson helped to create the securities and then turned around and made bets they would eventually blow up. which they did. it was financial car wreck. costing t

moments ago white house press secretary robert gibbs speaking out, discussing the characteristics the president is looking for in a nominee to succeed justice john paul stevens. listen here. >> as we look for a nominee now and as we looked for a nominee last year, somebody who understands how the law affects real people and the real world. not just in a clam, not just out of school. >> this comes hours after president obama met with senate leaders on this very topic. saying he plans to nominate someone by the end of may, possibly sooner. shannon bream, live in washington. shannon, so the only question the president took was a biggie on abortion. how is that going to factor into this whole thing? >> you're absolutely right, megyn, he did take only one question and that was about it, about women's rights and he said listen, i'm going to say the same thing every president has said up until this point, i do not have a litmus test, but he also said women should have the ability to make their own decisions about their bodies and issues of reproduction. he also said core constitutional value

and press secretary robert gibbs says the administration is pleased with a -- the progress so far, andresident obama spoke with chinese president hu jintao by phone this week, and he's scheduled to scheduled to attend a security summit in washington later this month and mr. obama said today he's confident he can get u.s. allies, on board. >> president barack obama: we don't take any options off the table and we'll continue to ratchet up the pressure and examine how they respond. but we're going to do so with a unified international community, that puts us in a much stronger position. >> chris: iran's nuclear capability is the top american concern, there are also worries about its conventional weapons. the u.s. navy is a powerful deterrent, and, correspondents greg burke reports, from aboard the uss eisenhower. >> reporter: long range missile tests, locally manufactured naval destroyers, and just this week a cruise missile production line. iran is working hard, to project the regime's growing military prowess. tehran's saber rattling is likely aimed at discouraging a strike against its

robert gibbs says not so. paul volcker teed up the idea a couple weeks ago saying it might be the only option for ex employeesing deaf -- exploding deficits. such a tax would violate the president's promise to spare us from a tax hike. >> if you're making less than a quarter million dollars a year, you will not see your taxes go up one single i.d. not your capital gains tax, not your income takes, payroll tax, no tax. >> now listen to this. >> one thing we haven't done is raise income taxes on people making less than $250,000 a year. >> neil: income tax out, value added taxes not necessarily? my next guest thinks it's on the table. congressman, the white house is denying is. listen to what robert gibbs had to say when major garrett raised the issue. >> is there anything the administration is doing to consider, calculate, pose, any way shape or form, measure implications of a value added tax? >> this is not something the president has proposed nor is it under consideration. >> neil: dead issue? >> do you think

. >> host: you did with robert gibbs. don't they see you coming and turn and run? [laughter] >> no. then you have into disarmament young people thought there'd be a difference and we see how obamacare is passed through the reconciliation process of avoiding the filibuster something that barack obama himself said in 2005 was unconstitutional and a power grab and robert gibbs said president bush did the same thing to pass tax cuts. >> don't you think that is what we wanted so he is getting done what we want him to get done? >> the processes interco to getting legislation passed and with the banks in the process i think unfortunately many young people did not shut the ipod off for one second. looking at obamacare the premiums will rise 17% because they are now acidizing the cost of older americans and insurance companies can no longer carry a significant degree according to their age. that is what i define as the obama zombies. barack obama does a masterful job i will support him. by his policies are a slap in the face to their future. >> host: the democratic line. >> caller: good morn

press secretary robert gates said -- robert gibbs said that hamid karzai's recent comments are untrue and troublesome. he was scheduled to visit the white house may 12. gibbs said his comments will be monitored to see whether the meeting will take place. >>> an arrest in washington state. federal agents have arrested charles wilson for making death threats against a u.s. senator. he voted in favor of health-care reform. wilson had allegedly been leading harassing messages for months. escalated to death threats after the health care vote. >>> a man accused of threatening erick kanter has been sent to a hospital. he was arrested after posting a threatening video on youtube. prosecutors say he has multiple personality disorder and believes he is the son of the guyenoch. he is being -- son of the goddess enoch. >>> a water main break in tysons corner is continuing to cause problems. construction crews accidentally broke the line about 4:30 this morning. we are live with more on the traffic problems and when things could get back to normal. >> this is a doozy. it could not have happened in

that is what robert gibbs said today. one of the core problems we face in afghanistan is the competitive instincts of pakistan and india so i would have to think that both of the leaders here next week is a point of discussion. with the upcoming planned offensive, the ambassador was recently here and his comment was this is one part military was this is one part military and five parts political -- the one part, military, the afghans would except as political? that is a big question. >> welcome to the bipartisan center for international studies. >> i am from the christian science monitor. i would like to go back to the reset with russia subjects. could you talk a little bit about whether you see any relationship developing between obama and president of the dove -- but that if -- medvedev. where do you see the politics going? >> well, i do not think there is any question that president obama finds it easier or more pleasant to interact with him that he does with mr. blogger proven -- mr. vladimir putin. point. on foreign

that is what robert gibbs said today. one of the core problems we face in afghanistan is the competitive instincts of pakistan and india so i would have to think that both of the leaders here next week is a point of discussion. with the upcoming planned offensive, the ambassador was recently here and his comment was this is one part military and five parts political. the one part military, the afghan leadership is likely to support the five parts political, big question mark. >> welcomed -- >> i would like to go back to the reset with russia subject and could you talk a little bit about the political aspect of it and whether you see any relationship developing between obama and the russian prime minister that could cause any issues? >> i think there is no question that president obama finds it easier to interact with him then putin. it is a tricky point. on foreign policy and security issues, my view has been that there really isn't any space between them on foreign policy and security issues that they see that is signifi

. >> white house press secretary robert gibbs said today president obama is likely to meet with the chinese president next monday. as world leaders arrive for a nuclear security summit. the value of china's currency could be on the agenda for that meeting. more now on u.s. nuclear policy and other issues. this is 55 minutes. >> the white house will host the nuclear summit here in washington, d.c. i wanted to list for you all a couple different things. first, the 47 countries, including the united states, will participate in the summit. they include algeria, argentina, armenia, australia, belgium, brazil, canada, chile, china, the czech republic, egypt, finland, france, georgia, germany, india, indonesia, israel, italy, japan, jordan, kazakhstan, malaysia, mexico, nor ocko, nesterlands, new zealand, nigeria, norway, pakistan, philippines, poland, the republic of korea, the russian federation, saudi arabia, sing apour, switzer -- singapore, switzerland, spain, sweden, thailand, turkey, united arab emirates, the united kingdom, the united nations, the iaea and the european union will also be t

>> well -- >> has robert gibbs said to you -- >> all right. look, how we do this -- we'll work closely with the afghan government. we're not going to give any particular tribal leader veto power over what we think and the afghan national government thinks is important to stabilize and secure afghanistan. but obviously, popular support is an important component of what we're doing. >> p.j. >> yeah. >> correct me if i'm wrong here, but i don't hear you condemning the remarks that karzai made over the weekend in which he said if foreign influence -- western influence continues, you know, this will legitimize the taliban, a cause that he might join. are you reluctant to condemn those remarks? >> well, i have not seen a specific transcript of his remarks. so frequently -- >> then why did they report it, though? i mean -- >> well, put it this way. frequently there -- comments made from some distance can be taken out of context. i'll let the president of afghanistan explain his own remarks. we were concerned about his remarks last week. we expressed

. >> robert gibbs as white house secretary, been at the president's side since the obama presidency began 15 months ago. the job of white house press secretary requires a good working relationship with the white house press corps. that relationship is now perceived as far from harmonious. the press sees gibbs as smug, sarcastic, and disliked, if you believe the remarkable reporting on gibbs behavior in a front page four column out of six above the fold 2500 word recap by reporter horowitz in the influential "washington post." and the press/gibbs relationship is ted to be -- said to be degenerating by the day so much so they are expected to meet with exchange availability. unlike other press secretaries, pat, who would make rounds of calls to reporters as they neared deadlines, gibbs is notoriously tough to get on the phone. his is a little low qis are full of "first and foremost," and "i will say this." and he relies on escape hatch promises to check and get back to you, unquote. then there's this. check out the web, the white house. it all turns out to be a suite of social networking too

that's what robert gibbs said this morning at the gaggle. >> well, obviously one of the core problems we face in afghanistan is the competitive instincts of pakistan and india. and so i would have to think that with both of the leaders here next week, that that may be a point of discussion hopefully. with the upcoming -- the planned offensive in kandahar, you know, ambassador eikenberry was here recently. and his comment was, you know, this is one part political -- excuse me, one part military, five parts political. the one part military, the afghan leadership is likely to support. the five parts political, big, big question mark. >> welcome to the bipartisan nonideologically driven center for strategic for international studies. right over here. >> francine kiefer from the "christian science monitor." i would like to go back with the reset of russia subject. could you talk a little bit about the political aspect of it. and whether you see any relationship developing between obama and medvedev? whether that could cause a split between medvedev and putin in terms of direction of the co

bipartisan kind of compromise, white house officials reminding everyone time and time again, including robert gibbstwitter a few minutes ago, about the bipartisan, vast majorities have passed these kinds of treaties. >> they're already putting the pressure on. >>> searching for a job, tough these days for millions of americans, but for our nation's veterans, the struggle is even tougher. how one program is working with wounded warriors to make sure they have a place on wall street. >>> and taking a look at what's hot on the web today, americans usually dread tax day, but nearly half of u.s. households don't even pay. that's because they're incomes are too low or they qualify for enough deductions. >>> and the loss of two more glaciers. warmer temperatures have dropped the number of named glaciers to 25. it used to be 37. >>> and a commentary written about "south park" is getting a lot of buzz online. maybe it's because of episodes like last night, where cartman spoofs mad money. >> hello, facebookers. i'm here to get you more friends. the stock is plumeting. he had 55 friends. delete kyle because h

. >>> and white house spokesperson robert gibbs says that the oil regular disaster is not giving thent second thoughts about the safety of offshore oil drilling. this of course questions raised after the new decision on oil dripping he took only a week ago. >>> meanwhile today in a courtroom in knoxville, tennessee, sarah palin took the stand to testify against the college student accused of hacking into her e-mail account during the 2008 presidential election. >> just a sad state of affairs that we are to be here to teach somebody it's wrong to do such a thing. >> the defendant faces 50 years in jail. quite a sentence, but you would not know it from the way he talked about palin's daughter on thursday. >> what did you think about bristol? >> not my type. >> unbelievable. kerry standers is in knoxville, tennessee. i don't think he's taking this seriously enough. >> reporter: i don't think so and if the jury is following the instructions of the judge, they're not watching tv and didn't see that. that comment did not help him. >> they're not sequestered. >> reporter: the whole idea is

press secretary robert gibbs says this is something the white house has tried to make happen for more than 10 years now. our coverage of the nuclear summit continues online at myfoxdc.com where you can find more on the meeting plus a complete list of all of the road closures. >>> first lady michelle obama heads to mexico city today. it will be her first official foreign trip alone. according to the "washington post," her staff is calling this the kickoff of of the first lady's international agenda. he she will speak with elementary and university students encouraging them to become active in their communities and take responsibility for their own futures. >>> here at home, the maryland general assembly worked late into the night to approve new legislation. a ban on hand-held cell phone use is among those. mediation between borrowers facing foreclosures and their mortgage lenders if the borrower wants t a job creation initiative. and changes to to the slot machine policy to entice more bidding in western maryland. there were also several chains to the state's policy on sex offenders in

white house press secretary robert gibbs spoke with reporters about the ukraine agreement and other white house issues. he is joined by counter- terrorism adviser john brennan. here's a portion of that press conference. >> ukraine announced its intention to get rid of all its stockpiles of the enriched uranium by the next meeting in 2012. they will remove a substantial amount of their stock this year and will convert its seville nuclear research facility -- its civil nuclear research facility to operate with regular fuel. this is something the united states has tried to make happen for more than 10 years. the material is enough to construct several nuclear weapons. this demonstrates your grandpa's continued leadership in nonproliferation and comes at an important -- in an important region where highly enriched uranium exists. let me turn this over to john brennan. >> the threat of nuclear terrorism is will and contributes to global insecurity. there has been indisputable evidence over the last quoted two decades that terrorist groups have searched out nuclear-weapons and that includes bio

. >> the white house and the economic team remains deeply concerned, those were robert gibbs's words about persistent long term employment. let's look at the numbers. the unemployment rate for those who have been unemployed longer than six months, 27 years or more. overall rate is 44.1%, those on unemployment, nearly half have been there more than six months. the average der racing -- duration is 31.2 weeks. they're working on that with tax credits and other things. the minority leader john boehner says this is unacceptable and not what the president promised when the stimulus was passed. >> where are we seeing the new jobs? >> couple of sectors. one of the pieces of good news, a lot of sectors in the private sector economy are creating jobs. some of the most encouraging numbers 45,000 in the health and education sector. leisure and hospitality, 22,000, manufacturing showing some steady but shallow gains, 17,000. construction 15,000. also retail added 15,000 jobs. that's not on the board but that happened as well. what we're beginning to see and the president talked about this is not

that question was actually asked at a briefing with robert gibbs this morning and he wasn't sure what the choice would be. >> before we get there to the park, i know gibbs was also asked about these disturbing, to say the least, comments, reported from hamid karzai. they're not pleased the ally s has -- troops and treasure going to afghanistan with a leader criticizing the united states. >> clear frustration coming from this white house that karzai has done it again. just last week, he made extremely antiwest comments. over the weekend, he renewed those comments. >> now, we're seeing the president in a nationals red jacket coming out with a team owner and shaking hands with the kol lor guard there. these are wounded warriors from all of the services who are being honored there today. you can see obviously, these veterans getting special honor and tribute from the washington nationals as the president is coming up. chuck todd is with the pool representing all of the networks. chuck, you're out there in the park. what a great place to be. >> it is a great place to be. mostly cheers, a f

and i think that robert gibbs was quite clear it was something they are not considered. maybe he's floating this idea the same way that paul vomer -- volcker mentioned this as a possibility. i think taxes will go up, we have a decifit, and the question is for whom, and that is something that would be a middle class tax hike. bill: you're agreeing with adam, to be clear here. >> well, i'm not agreeing in the sense that i don't think they're going to do it, and the other reason i don't think they're going to do it is that the senate just passed a nonbinding resolution, essentially saying, you know, that they're not going to even consider this, and it was overwhelmingly against the idea of a v.a.t. so i don't think there's even enough support on the hill. bill: it would be 85-13 in the senate, they took a resolution, the resolution says that a massive tax increase will cripple families on fixed incomes, and only further push back america's economic recovery. i want to play the sound bite, adam, and i'll let you respond to that, this from i believe october 2008, senator obam

>> because, as robert gibbs said, they're trying to send a wake-up call to washington, d.c.or years people that have lived along the border in texas, in arizona, in new mexico, have been warning the federal government that things are getting out of hand, and they have been getting out of hand. and violence has continued to erupt. somebody told us yesterday, i forget who it was, that juarez is now the most dangerous city on the planet. it's just south of the border in texas. the irony of this is that janet napolitano was the governor of arizona. then, of course, got to washington, d.c. but this is a stiff rebuke of her lack of policies at the federal level and barack obama's and the republicans and the democrats like. and there will be other states that feel like they have to step in, mark halperin, if washington doesn't start intervening in a more aggressive way. >> well, we've already seen, lots of states are passing legislation or considering legislation. you know the three people i really want to hear from? george bush, george bush and jeb bush. because those three have a

robert gibbs got on twitter and i think he had, i don't know, how many tens of thousands of people he sort of a useful tool for legislating? >> reporter: well, you know, that's something i was just about to ask him. and we will, because, you're right, in recent years we've seen republicans using the social media a little bit more effectively than democrats and for a long time democrats thought that they were sort of leading the charge, if you will. and now we've seen very much more aggressive push from the white house, robert gibbs you know using twitter a lot getting the white house message out, organizing for america, the president's grassroots message, doing it from outside the white house. both sides are pretty engaged on it, and you played "empire state of mind" on the way to the segment. jay-z, of course, i hear people laughing. >> it's the new theme for my team, right? that's what they played as the yankees -- >> reporter: that's right. >> -- won the world series. >> reporter: ali and i root for the yankees. they are coming to the white house because they won the world series.

after press secretary robert gibbs made that announcement, president obama and the ukrainian president released a joint statement, quote, president yanukovych announced ukraine's decision to ged rid of all of its stockpiles while the united states will provide necessary technical and financial assistant to support this effort. sound familiar? the united states will provide technical and financial assistance. hopefully this time, minus the earthquakes. there's actually no guarantee that like chile ukraine will send us their highly enriched uranium but it's not out of the realm of possibility. united states is doing this sort of thing because we want to secure all the dangerous, highly-enriched uranium that's out there in the world. so far some countries are interested in letting us take it off their hands. having hundreds of pounds just lying around not only presents the risk of it accidentally detonatin detonating, it could fall into the wrong hands. the head of the chilean nuclear agency told the associated president, quote, we are happy to see it government countries normally don't w

then the propaganda minister robert gibbs, geithner everybody else, biden running, no, no, we're noty thinking about a vat tack in light of the trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, i -- this is what liberals do, spend money, increase debt now raise taxes. is that what we can expect? >> i think the biggest problem is the same the conservatives and a lot of mainstream americans have with health care reform. not that reform is bad. it is that barack obama did tell america that he wanted to fundamentally transform america. i think a lot of people understandably are suspicious that when he said that he wanted to fundamentally transform the united states of america into the soviet states of america. every step toward a collective socialist state is suspect. this is one of those programs -- >> sean: did you support what he's doing? >> not at all. >> sean: i think he is you ruining the american economy and weakening us abroad. >> i think they knew they were going to have to do this because their programs are unsustainable. >> is there a surprise? acting surprise that killer wh

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. >> line of the day, robert gibbs, quote, i think michael steele's problem isn't the race card, it'sredit card. >>> the florida urologist who puts politics ahead of patients. who says if you voted for obama you should go see a different doctor. >> it was just fun for me. it's like a provocative billboard. >> not fun for a would-be patient who complains to the authorities. congressman alan grayson facilitates. he's our special guest. >>> beck compares what he's doing to what rosa parks did. seriously. >>> and the tiger woods apology tour, stop number two.

robert gibbs goes after megyn kelly. >> greta: where live until the top of the hour. special treat. a star is here, actress jenna elfman gives you a sneak peek of the season finale of her comedy, next. this you probably never thought would you see. a bush-clinton face off we have it caught on tape this is not what you think. [ speaking native language ] [ moans ] [ speaking native language ] ♪ [ speaking native lauage ] [ male announcer ] doctors have been saying it forever. let's take a look. [ male announcer ] but they've never actually been able to do it like this. let's ke a look. [ male announcer ] v-scan from ge healthcare. a pocket sized imaging device that will help change the way doctorsee patients. that's better health for more people. ♪ we get dole miles on every purchase. so we earned a ski trip twice as fast. we get double miles every time we use our card. ( thuds ) i'll take this. ( crashing ) double miles add up quick. and all of those. so we brought the whole gang. one adult, one goat please. it's hard to beat double miles. everyone knows two is better

. >> robert gibbs responded to that and said he shouldn't play the race cards.ot about a race card, it's about a credit card. has it become if people explain or justify their actions and in any way offer up the color of their skin as playing a role that it becomes the race card? >> i think that if we get into that, then we use that to not deal with the real racial disparities in the country. it is easy for people that don't face that to say that. it is more difficult when you have blacks doubly unemployed. when you have us going to school and getting four grades less quality education, health disparities. those that suffer from that inequality are not playing a race card, we're dealing with a stacked deck. that's what our conference is about this week. at one level, we should not exploit it. people should not misuse it. i think the issues gibbs was talking about was spending not raise. at another level we can't trivialize it and act like there's not a race situation we still have to deal with in this country. >> i was going through the agenda. there's a lot on t

robert gibbs may be ruling it out but another senior white house official is planning a run for officeikes! we'll tell you who, next. we want to know if you think president obama should return goldman sachs' campaign donations? text us at 36288: we have the results coming up at the end of the show. that and much more, straight ahead. we get double miles with every purchase. so we earned a tropical vacation in half the time. we earn double miles every time we use our card. ( shouts ) double miles add up fast so we can bring the whole gang. ( grunting ) awesome! it's hard to beat double miles. everyone knows two is better than one. introducing the venture card from capital one... with double miles on every purchase every day. go to capitalone.com. ( gasps ) what's in your wallet? wait up! >> sean: during an interview last night with charlie rose rahm emanuel still plans for running for office one day. >> always an aspiration even when i was in the house of representatives. >> mayor of chicago? >> yes. >> sean: there's a bright side at least he didn't say he wanted to run for president. m

i saw that robert gibbs immediately tweeted the numbers, job growth. so i guess that's the equivalent of doing a jig on twitter. >> reporter: well, good morning. right. the president's going to be departing within the hour to go to north carolina. this is going to be his third trip to that state since coming into office. and he's going to be, of course, talking about the jobs numbers today. this is the first time in awhile that the economy's added 162,000 jobs. but it's really not enough. it's not fast enough when you consider that the economy has lost 8.4 million jobs in this recession. he'll say that there's still a long way to go and he'll go to a plant that makes advanced battery technology. it's been able to expand its business with the recovery act grant. so he'll try to show what the administration has done on jobs and what it still plans to do on jobs. he's going to talk about some ideas he's had and get congress to push through plans such as using t.a.r.p. money to expand loans to small businesses. >> all right. athena jones at her post at the

white house press secretary robert gibbs told reporters they will evaluate karzai's remarks and decidehave the meeting scheduled for may 12th zblfshlgts the latest on that deadly mine explosion in west virginia. it happened almost 24 hours ago. 25 people are known dead and four are missing as i speak. meanwhile, the cause of the explosion is still under investigation. let's go to nbc's jay gray. he's near the site of the mine where the desperate rescue operation is in progress. jay, we know there was a delay. what do we know as far as an effort to get closer to where those trapped miners might be? >> reporter: hey, tamron. yeah, the work still continues this afternoon. the governor making it clear that this is still a rescue effort. he wants to make sure that as long as those four miners are unidentified, that they're going to continue to do whatever they can to get to them. they've had trouble with the drills, getting drills in position and in place. they're digging as you know 1,100 feet through the mines to these areas to allow some of the m methane to escape. they also want to dril

robert gibbs, the white house press secretary, reacted thusly, i think that is a very silly comment to make. i think michael steele's problem isn't the race card, it's the credit card. that point that mr. steele hired a former lobbyist, his former fund-raising aide, misusing substantial amounts of funds at his previous group. a political action committee, another a non-profit, was ordered by the city government to repay nearly $70,000 in unauthorized expenses and unaccounted funds as well as fined $4,000. on the heels of his arrival comes the resignation of two key rnc players, ron maccay and sam fox. a republican source telling politico mr. fox had lost confidence in mr. steele and was deeply troubled by the pattern of self-inflicted wounds and missteps. joining me now, melissa harris-lacewell, professor at princeton university. professor, good evening. >> thanks. good to be here. >> let me start, big, big picture here. in a weird way, has michael steele become good for the republican party because the more time its critics spend talking about him the less time they're talking about t

this is the response from robert gibbs. >> if a country -- if we see that a country greatly expands itsapons capability, the posture of view calls for the ability to re-evaluate any assurances that have been given. our country possesses a massive conventional arsenal that we believe has an important deterrent effect on anybody that might make the poor decision to attack our country. >> cliff, are we going to be safe with this policy? safer than we are tonight? >> no safer than we are tonight. at best you can say it's neutral. they're saying, don't worry we won't retaliate unless we think we should. we're saying, what else, we're not doing anything about the proliferation that is actually taking place by telling the world and telling our enemies we're going to have fewer nuclear weapons and we are less likely to -- we may change our minds and do it any how if we decide we want to. i don't think either our enemies or allies will sleep better as a result of this tonight. >> i think it's a lofty goal to have a world with no nukes, but -- >> it is indeed. >> -- what might be lostier is us, t

. >> line of the day, robert gibbs, quote, i think michael steele's problem isn't the race card, it'sida urologist who puts politics ahead of patients. who says if you voted for obama you should go see a different doctor. >> it was just fun for me. it's like a provocative billboard. >> not fun for a would-be patient who complains to the authorities. congressman alan grayson facilitates. he's our special guest. >>> beck compares what he's doing to what rosa parks did. seriously. >>> and the tiger woods apology tour stop number two.

president had today, what is your takeaway from the president's focus and also what you heard from robert gibbs. >> reporter: look, i think we've got a short list that's still around ten. one official says it's not getting any bigger at this point but not contracting either. this is the process where the president is starting to look into the writings of these potential candidates. one interesting little tidbit, the president has begun to have some personal conversations with potential candidates, including at least one in person here at the white house. this was described to me as not a formal interview, but rather kind of a meet and greet. look, the president personally knows several of the people he's looking at like elena kagan, diane woods. other persons he's never met. at least one person was here at the white house, meeting with the president in an informal way just to say hello and get to know each other a little bit. so the process moves forward. but they have sort of given themselves a deadline informally of the end of may to have a nominee named. it's not a date that they pulled out

reporting this afternoon up on the hill, keith, is that the democratic leadership, even while robert gibbs is down at the white house pointing out the chaos that could happen around the country, i don't think the democrats want to -- i know, based on what they told me this afternoon, top democratic sources on the hill in both the house and the senate, told me they're not going to bring up an immigration bill any time soon. the senate would go first, the senate is not going to get to it until at least july, if then. maybe not until right before they adjourn and maybe not even until a lame duck session. there's nobody at white house in charge of han choing this. there's no bill drafted. i think arizona caught them by surprise and democrats are very cautious about wanting to jump into this thing. >> and are republicans cautious too? because senator mccain and former congressman tancredo, tancredo remark, i want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he really does worry people will be pulled over because they look like they should be pulled over, so i'll give him the benefit of the doubt u

coming up, we will take you to the white house for the daily briefing with spokesperson robert gibbs. until then, part of this morning's "washington journal." >> "washington journal" continues. host: coming up in a moment, a discussion about diversity in the united states and in your community. our first prize high school studentcam winner but that this issue. >> america's strength is in its diversity of its people. >> when you're in school and you do not really fit in with everyone, it gives me a place where i always belong. >> i guess people's always say, whoa, that is a different mix. no one has ever heard of a jewish chinese guy. >> when a person comes to the united states and they're not a native-born american, they bring a lot more than just the color of their skin. they bring a completely different outlook, in a different way of celebrating. >> it does not matter what coulter you come from, if you are in america, you are what makes up america. it does not matter where you are from. you do not have to be in america to make up america. without the people in america from different

you've got robert gibbs, white house spokesperson saying this afternoon that the white house still expects bipartisan support for the financial regulatory reform. are we to interpret that as a -- some optimism? >> well, they expect they'll get it eventually but probably not today. the meetings will go on even this afternoon between senators dodd and shelby so they're working on it but they're not giving us the sense that it will happen this quickly. overall, in the big picture, they do expect a number of republicans to eventually vote along with this because it's so politically popular in the country to try to have these regulations and they believe that some of the excesses we've all seen over the last couple years do need some new rules to try to tighten things up on wall street. so it's a matter of how to get there and certainly the political context which gives everybody a chance to throw their punches. >> we should point out while you were talking we were showing live pictures on the senate floor. i know you'll keep us up to date on the very latest. thank you very much. kelly o'donnel

on wednesday, white house spokesman robert gibbs voiced new concerns about karzai. he suggested the u.s. might cancel the afghan leader's planned visit next month. meanwhile, nato reported another service-member killed today in the south-- the ninth this month. in iraq, funerals were held in baghdad, a day after bombings killed 54 people. hundreds of mourners marched in tribute to the victims. about 120 iraqis have been killed in and around baghdad in the last five days. iraqi officials said militants are trying to undermine efforts to form a new government. in thailand, the government declared a state of emergency after protesters broke into parliament. a group known as the "red shirts" stormed the building, forcing lawmakers to flee by helicopter or by scaling the compound's walls. the prime minister said the four-week-old protests had gone too far. >> the protestors are breaking more and more laws. especially in the past few days. they disobeyed law enforcement officers on duty, and today they even trespassed on an important government location, the case where th

at the white house, spokesman robert gibbs said ultimately the bill's opponents will have to give way. >> i think in the end we're going to get a bipartisan vote because i think the position they're in right now is just simply untenable. >> ifill: any bill that does emerge from the senate will have to be combined with a separate measure that has already pass the house. the remaining sticking points boil down to an essential question . would this bill go too far or not far enough? we get a range of views. yves smith writes the blog naked capitalism and heads the financial advisory firm, aurora advisers. she's part of a coalition of economists, former regulators and others raising objections to the bill. alan blinder is a professor of economics at princeton. he is a former vice chairman of the federal reserve and served on president clinton's council of economic advisers. robert glauber of harvard university. he was undersecretary of the treasury during the tenure of president george h.w. bush. and robert litan is a senior fellow of economic studies and global economy at the brookings i

. >> holman: at the white house, press secretary robert gibbs said a may 12 meeting between karzai and president obama is still on schedule. in iraq, gunmen killed a shiite family of six outside baghdad. the victims included four children. the attack followed an especially violent weekend in baghdad. on sunday, three suicide car bombings killed more than 40 iraqis near several foreign embassies. iraqi officials said militants are trying to undermine efforts to form a new government. 115 miners were rescued today from a flooded coal mine in northern china. they'd been trapped there since march 28. we have a report narrated by john ray of independent television news. >> reporter: they are calling the miracle from 500 meters deep. after more than week entombed underground no one expected there to be so many survivors nor even any at all. rescue teams had just about given up hope when they detected faint signs of life. so no wonder they clapped as one by one they bring the living rather than the dead to the surface. one miner managed feebley to return the applause. the drama has played out

. >> host: you did one with robert gibbs. don't folks see you coming and they sort of turn and run? >> guest: well, no, 'cause i butter them up first. you got to disarm them and go into a hard hitting question. young people thought that there was going to be a difference. now in washington. and we see how obama-care was passed. it was -- it was through the reconciliation process. avoiding the filibuster, something that barack obama himself said in 2005 was unconstitutional. a power grab majoritarian rule. and he said president bush did the same thing to pass his tax cuts. >> host: don't you think the folks you call obama zombies would say well, that's what we want to passed. we wanted something passed and he's getting something done. >> guest: the process intrical to getting legislation passed. and spoken of the process i think, unfortunately, many young people didn't shut their ipods for a second. if with you look at obama-care their premiums will go up. insurance companies can no longer vary price to a significant degree according to one's age. that affects people my age bracket.

one of the things we reported in the book is this group of three men, david axe right, robert gibbs at david plouffe, the campaign manager, chief strategist and spokesmen have almost a stable hold on the advise that gives to barack obama. very influential. this was a constant tension in campaign what other people including michelle obama would occasionally say when things are going badly, you know what? there needs to be a broader circle of advisers. it is seen there in the process around the time when it is clear barack obama will probably beat hillary clinton but is what is going to limp into the general election where he makes the decision to change course, where he expands his request tries a nice conference call with advisers that fun but not one of the freezes by a new done who goes on to become communications act. so that is a deeper portrait of barack obama here. it is not all flattering. people who said it is a much about barack obama or the stuff about barack obama is written by our sources who are the winners and therefore is not a false portrait as a. >> can you talk about