aaron, who is president and ceo of free press, and former fcc commissioner rocket mcdowell -- robert mcdowell. commissioner mcdowell, can the fcc put the kibosh on comcast/time warner cable mergersome. >> guest: oh, it could, absolutely. and the department of justice could try to do so as well. sometime in the past when mergers have been proposed not necessarily at the announcement stage we've heard words such as unthinkable. they haven't put the kibosh on it just yet, and the application, i don't think, has even been filed at the fcc. but, sure, as a matter of law, its ability, it could deny the merger if it wanted to. >> host: from what you've read about this, do you think the fcc should stop this merrier? >> guest: well, so, actually, i think the better question is will it. and i don't think it will. and, you know, i'm in a think tank now, the hudson institute, so i have in dog in the fight. so trying to look at objectively, not as a commissioner in my past role, and you don't have to keep calling me commissioner anyway, it's not like the house of lords where we carry on these titles photo

us this week is craig aaron who is president and ceo of free press and former fcc commissioner robert mcdowel. commissioner mcdowel, can the fcc put the stops on the merger? >> guest: absolutely. sometimes when mergers have been were proposed in the past and we would here that is unthinkable but that hasn't happened yet so they have not put the kibosh on it yet. >> host: do you think the fcc should stop this merger? >> guest: i think the better question is will it. and i don't think it will. i am in a think tank now with a hudson institute so i am looking at this objectively not as a commissioner. you don't have to keep calling me commissioner by the way. but it isn't like i will kercar on these titles forever. but it could be fewed to implement public policy the fcc might not be able to do as quickly. this happens with big mergers of this type. you have the largest cable company buying the second larnl largest. the big hurdle, and i mean legal big hurdle, and comcast agreed to a lot of stringent orders for net nutrality and the shared content they owned and pricing and build out and all of t

robert mcdowell, he has been on the inside of these discussions and decisions.mer fcc commissioner. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. liz: tim armstrong after a week of agonizing public outcry, aol will once again match its employees 401(k) program reversing an earlier decision. jo ling kent, he has come out a week ago and blamed two distressed pregnancies or the wives on why everybody else has to suffer. it was a huge misstep. as a mother, working mother, i will not be the one to pile on here. he made a mistake, is now enough to simply apologize? >> so many critics out there, and was waiting in saying is he fit to run the company? the comp are trying to transition itself into a web publisher driven by advertising revenue. a lot of potential problems but first let's take a look at the apology. it says over the weekend he wrote we have decided to change the policy back to a per pay period matching contribution. and then he goes on to say in the apology on a personal note i made a mistake and apologized my comment last week when i mentioned spe

david: robert mcdowell, thanks. >> thanks for having me. david: let's go "off the desk."t to take you from new york to london in just three hours, just like the concord did. we had one of those. that is the plan for a new '80 million dollar jet from boston-based firm spike aerospace. >> i like the name. the private jet has cabin without any actual windows. instead the walls covered with thin display screen that plays movies, pictures or live video stream from outside the plane. david: engineers have spent two years designing the luxury aircraft and say the 18-seater jet will be up in the air by late 2018. we don't know exactly how expensive it will be. liz: i was going to say, how much? david: the old concord was about 10% premium over first class. liz: but time is money. david: time is money and those things are fun. you can see the curvature of the earth which is fun. liz: never got to. but "the willis report" is next. you can see that coming right up. [ male announcer ] whether it takes 200,000 parts, ♪ 800,000 hours ofupercomputing time, 3 million lines of code, 40,00

. >> host: craig aaron, do you agree with robert mcdowell that it is time to rewrite the telecommunications laws in the country? >> guest: i think we should go back and look at the '96 act and enforce that. that should be the starting point for a conversation about bringing the laws up to date. >> guest: it says the internet should be unfettered by state or regulations. >> host: robert mcdowell now with the hudson institute and craig aaron president and ceo of free press. >> comes up next, alan greenspan and then after that a discussion about the minimum wage with ceo director and later a panel with former cbo directors. >> we will hear more about the budget cuts for the military on "the washington journal"and then later chris murphy will discuss the political situation in the ukraine and the united states role there. you can join the conversation each morning. >> on tuesday, eric holder will speak live. our coverage starts at 10 a.m. eastern. >> what we are told is there is all kind of sit-ins and demonstrations that occur but they are done by these famous iconic people. it is rosa parks w

robert mcdowell, former fcc commissioner now with the hudson institute, and craig aaron, president and ceo of free press. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your television provider. >> and we're live at the kaiser family foundation this morning for remarks from arkansas governor mike bee by here in washington for the national governors' association winter meeting, and this morning he's talking about the impact of the health care law's implementation in his state. this is just getting underway, live coverage on c-span2. >> we determined through various means that by utilizing the private option to which was the ability to take private, to take public medicaid money and buy private insurance with it for exactly same population, requiring exactly the same at least minimum requirements that medicaid expansion would have required, that we were able to save roughly, excuse me, $86, $88, $89 million in general revenue that otherwise would have been spent had we not accepted medicaid expansion in the form of a private o

here is what former fcc commissioner robert mcdowell told me about that situation. >> questions whatquid pro quo, how much government coercion might there be with all of this? is the government trying to ultimately dictate speech and dictate how journalists are supposed to do their jobs in it doesn't matter what your political stripe might be, that is just not a good idea especially when you have such a competitive communications landscape. >> reporter: the study is scheduled to kick off first in columbia, south carolina, but stations there said they still haven't heard anything about it directly from the fcc. jon? jon: that is an interesting use of government inspection. shannon bream. >> reporter: taxpayer dollars. jon: thanks. jenna: with more politics now as republicans on capitol hill push back on the president's use of executive powers "the wall street journal"'s jerry seib tackled issue in his capital column this week. much is made about the problems president obama has had working traditional method working with congress to address laws and programs. he resolved to work aroun