really key thing to remember is that boehner i think would be in real danger of losing the speakershipf he cut the kind of deal the president is talking about and always remember that mitch mcconnell keeping an eye on what's happening in kentucky with an election coming up so i think it's fanciful thinking. i'm sorry you didn't talk about obama talked about the jedi mind meld. >> that's a good one. i mentioned the decision to release illegal immigrants before the sequester happened and you had arne duncan getting four pinnochios on his claim that teachers had already gotten pink slips because of the sequest sequester. do you think there's a negative backlash effect against the president or democrats for this sort of political grand standing on the sequester. >> yeah. that was definitely on duncan's part seemed careless, sloppy. you know, i have no reason to think he was dishonest but shouldn't have said it if he wasn't sure it had to do with the sequester and the issue the white house is wrestling with. the president's tone today seemed to be saying, well yeah, we won't fall a cliff. n

. >> are you secure in your speakership? >> listen, i'm here to lead the fight against out of control spending. and i'm going to lead that fight as speaker of the house. >> the next crisis potentially is what happens when you fund the government for the rest of the year. that's called the continuing resolution. are you committed to doing whatever it takes to keep the government open? >> absolutely. we at the house next week will act to extend the continuing resolution through the end of the fiscal year, september 30. the president this morning agreed that we should not have any talk of a government shutdown. so i'm hopeful that the house and senate will be able to work through this. >> so what happens next? is the political outcry, does it cause so much political pain on one side or the other that the other side gives? how does it get resolved? >> i don't think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved. ar after our continuing resolution, we'll continue to work on our budget. the house has done a budget every year since

if you keep doing this you are going to risk your speakership. the president said, and i talked to him interestingly enough, he said he realizes the magnitude of all of this. as does speaker boehner, key democrats in key republicans realize what it is. he literally said to me i would willingly lose an election if i could solve these problems. it is that serious. tim geithner the treasury secretary in the book is quoted, thousands of boards ford's telling the president you have got to do something about this problem. we have to fix it fix it. literally we will close down the american economy and turn it into a global economy if they do not solve the issue of this runaway spending and get some white stop borrowing in excess. he tells the president of the united states ,-com,-com ma if we default on her obligations in our ious, we will trigger a depression worse than the 1930s. does anybody here remember the 1930s depression? you probably don't. i don't. i was not born but i have read about it. it was a calamity for the world. tim geithner said to t

never mind the speakership. get the votes for it. >> gloria, dana, thank you very much. >> sure. >>> coming up, hard to believe that it's been ten years since the war in iraq started. an insider from the bush white house spilling the beans of what happened in the leadup to the war. the former speech writer david frum, a cnn contributor, is standing by to join us live. before copd... i took my son fishing every year. we had a great spot, not easy to find, but worth it. but with copd making it hard to breathe, i thought those days might be over. so my doctor prescribed symbicort. it helps significantly improve my lung function starting within five minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. with symbicort, today i'm breathing better. and that means...fish on! symbicort is for copd including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have

i think he would lose his speakership. >> john: thursday morning, february 28th, the sequestration willight. hours later, senate minority leader mitch mcconnell will meet with the president. >> we've talked to a lot of republican voters out there in the congressional districts and frankly we've heard from them anytime the leadership is headed over to the white house at the 11th hour, it makes them a little bit nervous. are they might to be nervous? >> no, they're not right to be nervous in this instance. there's really nothing frankly to discuss. we made the commitment to reduce spending this amount of money this year. now we'd be happy to talk with him about reconfiguring the way the spending reduction is achieved, but we're not going to cut a penny less than we said we would. >> john: are you expecting that he will propose tomorrow some more revenue raisers? >> that's what he's been advocating out on the campaign trail. >> john: so your response to him will be, mr. president, with all due respect, no? >> the answer is no, he's already gotten all the taxes he's going to get. he got it

>> the speakership and leadership will be here, and i'm a quick flight away. >> you're on your way out yes, ma'am. >> you're not going to be here when the cuts kick in? >> if they call me back, i'm be back. >> what do you think about the fact you won't be here? >> we have to go to the airport. >> you have to go to the airport? okay. bye. >> some republicans whose party runs the house, were unapologetic about leaving washington until monday. >> i think it's actually better when we're home working because the work we do there, in my opinion, is more important than the work we do here, especially if we're going to keep spending money. >> this was his idea, the president's idea. >> as you well know, most republicans voted for it. >> i voted for it, too, because i think we have to get our spending in like. these are the things at 2%, most families, most businesses back home have had to do the same thing. >> other lawmakers in both parties sounded as fed up as their constituents. >> leaving, we would stay here and if we were staying here and not passing a bill, it's not any better. >> it's a

i mean, republican senator this week said if john boehner gives in on taxes, he loses his speakershipns this week. they needed to take cuts back to constituents. >> if that's the mantra being treated by the gop and house especially, how do we govern? how do we move forward? >> i would say that's the $64,000 question. probably the $64 billion question. i mean, look, we have another deadline coming up at the end of the month, how to fund government going forward through the end of the fiscal year, through the end of september, and, look, i think the white house clearly is betting the public pressure will compel them back to the table. lo look, you bring up the best point. compromise is a word in washington that if you say you have to bleep out. it's a bad word. and many people in congress are far more concerned about a primary challenge from the right in the case of house republicans than they ever are about being in a district where a democrat can beat them. there isn't a lot that compels working across party lines right now, and i think -- i think what the president is betting on is t

wanted to get rid of him and they held a majority and here is a party which manages to get back to speakershipks in part to newt's amazing campaign skills. he can't govern. they dump him and he comes out and brags and at least i can be an executive. >> explain. >> look, he's always viewed himself as an executive as this grand figure, historical figure who led his party to the majority and can do so once again, and i think he viewed at the time and he viewed santorum as a junior partner and even when he was losing badly i think he still viewed santorum as a junior partner and in fairness you have to get up and look in the mirror and think you can be president or else you can't get out on the campaign trail day after day after day doing what these guys do. the campaign did revolve around trashing romney as one republican called another these day, a moderate. that was a big knock on him. here was santorum at last year's cpac. >> we're not going to win this election, ladies and gentlemen, because the republican candidate has the most money to beat up their opponent and win the election. we won in

i think he would lose the speakership. >> so does that guy belong in the common sense caucus where he job for sitting down with the president. what he's doing tonight to sit down at a restaurant. it's a nice restaurant. it's a nice dining room. i don't know who's paying the bill tonight, but you expect anything to come out of this guy ron johnson? >> not at all. as a matter of fact, if you're going to deal with somebody as far away from the president as this ron johnson, you do so literally one on one and you do so in the darkness of night. because let me tell you. in that meeting, in that dinner, he is going to be the guy who becomes the leak. he's going to be the guy that leads the identification of the so-called traitors. he's going to be the guy that places bad blood among everybody. >> thank you. this is why i love you. you are so good. nia, this is what's going to happen tonight. you and the other beat reporters have nailed out the people you think you can get a call from or answer from at 10:15 tonight when they're out of the room. you probably got corker ready and lindsey grah

for instance, there is the chatter that speaker boehner might lose his speakership because if he doesn't against new tax hikes, regardless if it's closing loopholes or increases. so what do you make of that? chatter? >> i think the speaker has a problem, which is there is almost two republican parties. there is the more establishment, karl rove, let's get pragmatic and win. big money republican party, which says we've got to make deals here. we can't be blamed for shutting down the government. and you've got another wing of the republican party that says who needs two democratic parties? we should have a republican party that stands for republican principles and if sequestration goes into effect, fine. it's the first step and we'll have to make adjustments. but not tax increases. i think you got real tension within the republican party, which is part of the sort of cauldron that's on fire here. >> arthel: let's talk about the democratic side. let's talk about the president in particular. i'd like to ask you how you feel this will affect his leadership and how he's handling affairs. >> we

can you imagine keeping your speakership if you got challenged from the right by kevin mccarthy or eric think boehner thinks about this as a quote-unquote moral issue. it may be convenient for the base, but i think this goes to his -- >> i think this is the challenge and the republican party has a fundamental challenge. the elites within the party believe that they have to move left on social issues in order to comport with younger voters. in order to be seem less scary and seem less harsh. that they need to speak more softly on moral sort of social issues and that on economic issues they need to sound softer, but hold hard to their position. the problem is, for the base that feels deeply about these things, from a religious point of view, they don't have a political imperative, they're not going to change their deeply held religious beliefs on either marriage or abortion or contraception, just to help their political party win elections. >> this is the, the story of how the modern republican party was built. coming back on itself now. i've been around like james has, long enough to see

speaker boehner's speakership is constantly up for debate. i mean, what's the likelihood that any kind of deal making happens before the 2014 midterms? >> it's slim. chuck's point is exactly right, and it's hard to argue. joy's point is also right. there are going to be people who disop organization atley feel this, and so in those districts, especially, in plays where there is either a republican governor and/or you have republican house districts, there is going to be a lot of complaining at the local level. >> would you be willing to lose your job in no, most people are not willing to lose their jobs. >> he took heat over the fiscal cliff deal, and this is where he is drawing a bit of a line. >> john boehner then said multiple times, this has become the sort of phrase of john boehner, which is the house has done its work. take it up to the senate. my question is that the refrain on everything? he could feesably say that on gun control. he can see that on -- i don't know in a the house has done its work on immigration and gun control, but l

. >> she lost speakership over it. it was not done for political reasons.healthcare reform. of course he is a politician. you do not become president of the united states can't you do not become a senator without being a politician. everything done in washington is with an eye towards the pole. charles: has he been political to a fault? he certainly overplayed with sequestration. you know what, if we do not meet this, life will be dramatically different for america the day after sequestration. >> the d.c. press corps and national press corps kind of joked about this, local stations are doing -- charles: he went to these little towns. the president of the united states coming to montana. you will not give him a hard time. >> are you being mean to these people in montana? charles: no. the president took advantage. i think it is backfiring. >> i think it did backfire. you see that in the polls. everybody is tired. they are just tired. they are tired of the nonsense in d.c. there is no question. charles: this white house tour thing is blowing up in his face. he

a handful of people control the chairmanships by the republicans and the speakership.t's more important than the economic success of our great nation. >> sir, one thing i want to get you on the record withon, becaue have developing news that a senate panel has just developed background checks for more gun purchases. the fate is still in the full senate, not clear. was this the most palatable form of gun control legislation to move forward, again, by doing something in baby step it is, to try to get to something broader? >> i'm glad you said baby steps, because you removed by ability to be critical. to say that you shouldn't be crazy -- you can't be crazy and get a gun is a very -- it should have been done so long ago. yes, i'm happy, i hope it's adopted. we've got so far to go. there's no reasons why we manufacture more guns than any country in the world, why we have more guns per capita than any country in the world. and we have more deaths due to domestic problems than any country in the world. but, yes, that's a good first step. >> another thing i want to talk to yo

members that said basically if john boehner finds compromise on sequestration, he will lose his speakership to find some sort of a deal that -- save -- i don't want to make it so drastic as to say it's saving the country, but save some face here and got a deal done that was good for everybody, the far right-wing of his party would not let him forget about it. >> jamal: and the president has said he is willing to make some compromises, and that means raising revenue, but the speaker had an opinion about raising revenue. >> the discussion about revenue in my view is over. >> jamal: so the speaker believes that we don't have to do anything on the revenue side, that the wealthy are paying enough, that the tax code the way it works, is the way it works. there's no way we can solve this problem without raising more money. and he points to the president ageing to a tax raise earlier this year in january, but that was less than what boehner himself proposed last year. so i think we have a little bit more room to grow on raising revenues, but obviously we have to cut too. >> yeah that's right. >> ja

do not do a good job of policing ethics during that period until the end of the dennis pastor to speakershipit is hard for members to police one another. as son thing called the congressional ethics. it can investigate members of congress and write reports and recommend action. what they really do is when they do those investigations and refer them to the ethics committee, you are stuck with the same process where the ethics committee decides whether to look into this. there was a big scandal around yearsessional earmarks back that involved a lobbying firm whose leader went to jail for making illegal campaign contributions. the charges at the time were that this lobbying firm and its clients would contribute a lot of money to the campaigns of members of congress who in turn would earmark millions of dollars of contracts to these clients, put into appropriations bills and this company will get money to do such and such. the office of congressional ethics did a thorough investigation and turned it over to the house ethics committee which decided there was no scandal. i think that's what the pr

he has a tight hold, i think now on his speakership, but there are a lot of conservatives who continueink he's too squishy on the core issues. >> huh. >> real quick, a lot of boehner supporters pointed that hastert violated the hastert rule. >> providing aid during a disaster, not being part of providing that aid, but they can't get a majority of their members to do it so they end up holding their nose and doing something because they think it's better for maybe the country but certainly for the party not to be blocking that. and that's why hastert had to violate it and why boehner will continue to have to violate it. >> jim vandehei, thanks so much. >> take care, we'll see you later. >> eat more curly fries. >>> coming up next, how about this -- >> my iq is falling by the second. let's listen to this. >> no, curly fries are good for your iq. >> that's what i hear. >> it's a great song, man. >> lady antebellum. >> i don't know who did that study. it's a great song. ♪ >> you like this song? >> you heard this song? >> never. >> come on. >> what song is this? >> lady antebellum. >> where