you can't in effect use federal money to try to hit up a state official or local official to help a private developer. but it's a question of proof. and right now what we have could turn into a she said versus they said. and i think what the feds are looking for and trying to move at light speed is to get some corroboration. so far they certainly haven't dismissed what they have said. but they would like to have more than just her word and some of the personal records that she herself maintained. >> but she has a number of people, including a city council member who remembered her saying at the time of what she said was the threat that that lieutenant governor, guadagno, not only told her what she told her, but said look, i'm going to deny. this all this now has apparently come through three separate witness, including a city councilman. and you have her diary records. contemporary diary records. >> i think the fact that there are others that said she was referencing this at the time gives her credibility, but it doesn't give the feds another witness, because so far she is the only person t

you can't in effect use federal money to try to hit up a state official or local official to help a private developer. but it's a question of proof. an right now what we have could turn into a she said versus they said. and i think what the feds are looking for and trying to move at light speed is to get some corroboration. so far they certainly haven't dismissed what they have said. but they would like to have more than just her word and some of the personal records that she herself maintained. >> but she has a number of people, including a city council member who remembered her saying at the time of what she said was the threat that that lieutenant governor guadagno not only told her what she told her, but said look, i'm going to deny. this all this now has apparently come through three separate witness, including a city councilman. and you have her diary records. contemporary diary records. >> i think the fact that there are others that said she was referencing this at the time gives her credibility, but it doesn't give the feds another witness, because so far she is the only person that

information you talked to local officials and there is some debate about whether this is essentially a state responsibility or a local responsibility. what do local officials say. >> local officials and we really did concentrate on state and local officials because the elections are administered in 89,000 separate jurisdictions so you really need to concentrate on state and local official. they said first of all there is not europity in the problems we face nor the solutions for the different locales. they have concerns about a number of areas. we did not talk to a single election official who said i love the equipment our voters vote on. in fact, there was europity that there are real problems with the machines they have now which are going to end up sort of being warn out-- worn out within the next decade. they are not happy with the choices that are available on the marketplace today. that in part is because of a federal certification process that is simply not working. >> let me ask you both if you sit side-by-side having worked together on this report, is there a way to close the part of the divide in this discussion about how we vote and who gets to

or storing of thousands of pounds of marijuana. we've known that for a long time. that information i have relayed to federal officials. you know, local, state officials. area is used as an area that they hide tons of marijuana in. >> reporter: so based on your sources and your intelligence, when they began to encroach on what would be a drug deal, they were looked upon as potentially -- >> as threats. yes. as threats. and that's why they were given instructions to go ahead and shoot at them. >> reporter: the sheriff now tells cnn that eyewitnesses have come forward to him. witnesses he says who claim to know what happened here that day. they describe as military-style attack. three boats, several shooters, and hundreds of rounds being fired at two jet skiers. >> the shoot it killed david hartley was an unlucky shot. >> reporter: the sheriff now believes the killers were instructed to kill tiffany hartley, too. what happens next, he says, is a scenario he has put together from three witnesses on the mexican side of the lake. one source in mexico and at least one witness who told cnn that he saw a high speed chase on the u.s. side. a boat chasing a girl

or storing of thousands of pounds of marijuana. we've known that for a long time. that information is information that i have relayed to federal officials, you know, i mean, local, state officials that area is used as an area that they hide tons of marijuana in. >> reporter: so based on your sources and your intelligence, when they began to encroach on what would be a drug deal, they were looked upon as potentially -- >> as threats. yes. as threats. and that's why they were given instructions to go ahead and shoot at them. >> reporter: the sheriff now tells cnn that eyewitnesses have come forward to him. witnesses he says who claim to know what happened here that day. they describe a military-style attack. three boats, several shooters, and hundreds of rounds being fired at two jet skiers. >> the shot that killed david hartley was an unlucky shot. >> reporter: the sheriff now believes the killers were instructed to kill tiffany hartley, too. what happens next, he says, is a scenario he has put together from three witnesses on the mexican side of the lake. one source in mexico and at least one witness who told cnn that he saw a high speed chase on the u.s. side. a boat chasing a

or storing of thousands of pounds of marijuana. we've known that for a long time. that information is information that i have relayed to federal officials, you know, i mean, local, state officialsed as an area that they hide tons of marijuana in. >> reporter: so based on your sources and your intelligence, when they began to encroach on what would be a drug deal, they were looked upon as potentially -- >> as threats. yes. as threats. and that's why they were given instructions to go ahead and shoot at them. >> reporter: the sheriff now tells cnn that eyewitnesses have come forward to him. witnesses he says who claim to know what happened here that day. they describe a military-style attack. three boats, several shooters, and hundreds of rounds being fired at two jet skiers. >> the shot that killed david hartley was an unlucky shot. >> reporter: the sheriff now believes the killers were instructed to kill tiffany hartley, too. what happens next, he says, is a scenario he has put together from three witnesses on the mexican side of the lake. one source in mexico and at least one witness who told cnn that he saw a high speed chase on the u.s. side. a boat chasing a girl on a jet s

or storing of thousands of pounds of marijuana. we've known that for a long time. that information is information that i have relayed to federal officials, you know, i mean, local, state officialshat area is used as an area that they hide tons of marijuana in. >> reporter: so based on your sources and your intelligence, when they began to encroach on what would be a drug deal, they were looked upon as potentially -- >> as threats. yes. as threats. and that's why they were given instructions to go ahead and shoot at them. >> reporter: the sheriff now tells cnn that eyewitnesses have come forward to him. witnesses he says who claim to know what happened here that day. they describe a military-style attack. three boats, several shooters, and hundreds of rounds being fired at two jet skiers. >> the shot that killed david hartley was an unlucky shot. >> reporter: the sheriff now believes the killers were instructed to kill tiffany hartley, too. what happens next, he says, is a scenario he has put together from three witnesses on the mexican side of the lake. one source in mexico and at least one witness who told cnn that he saw a high speed chase on the u.s. side. a boat chasing a g

official declaration. the official declaration doesn't really do anything in terms of getting outside help or whatever. all it does is simply say that the state's resources will be available to local levels of government if they chose to ask us for that. and there were minimal requests, even now, from local levels of government for additional state assistance. >> reporter: couldn't that have kept people off the roads, though? if you declare a state of emergency and wouldn't that have kept people -- north carolina and other states aren't dealing the same issue we're dealing with because they declared a state of emergency before the storm hit. >> you may be right. that's a lesson we need to look at and see if it would have made a difference in this case. >> reporter: if i could follow up on that point, governor. i was at gema trying to get into the emergency ops center. they said it wasn't activated. that was 3:30 to 4:00. they told me because it wasn't activated. how can you say there wasn't an emergency when kids were stranded in schools and school buses at that time. >> charlie, you want to answer? >> yes, sir. the state operation center was partially activated. that means that some key state agencies were in place. and we were talking to even more of those people over the phone and through e-mail and things of that nature. and we were still gearing up for the response, because at 2:00 or 3:00 yesterday, it had still not gotten terrible on the roads. >> reporter: at 3:30 or 4:00 it wasn't terrible on the roads? is that what you're saying? >> yeah. it wasn't as gridlocked as it is now. >> reporter: governor, do you agree with that? >> i'm afraid i don't. because i was on the roads about that point in time and it was getting to be gridlocked. the interstates were already experiencing major difficulties. side roads that people were trying to take to get off were experiencing difficulties. so, you know, we all have some lessons we need to learn here from this. and i think we all will take that away. whether or not the declaration would have changed the circumstances, is a question i don't know the total answer to. we will talk with other departments such as local school superintendents as to whether or not they would have made a determination on their part had a declaration been issued earlier. i don't know whether that would have been the case or not. but certainly, all of that is the kind of thing that we have to evaluate. and will dictate whether or not we react in a different fashion at another point in time. hopefully it will not happen any time soon, but obviously this one is a bad situation. we're trying to deal with the realities now. >> reporter: governor, you said you don't blame anyone but some people are blaming you for the gridlock that we're seeing and the perception across the country is that georgia can't handle a storm like this. even al roker said that this is the result of poor preplanning. would you respond? >> well, i'm willing to take whatever blame comes my way. if i'm responsible for it, i'll accept that. i think the important thing to understand, though, is that we have geared up by way of resources. the mayor has already outlined that as to what the city has done since 2011 when we had a similar storm. the state has already done that as well through d.o.t. and, of course, here again, calling in the national guard and the assistance of the state patrol with the amount of equipment that is out there, we have much more equipment available. the problem was, though, the equipment could not function with so many people on the roadway and unable to move. now, i don't know the best way to solve that, other than to start taking it gradually to unclog that part of congestion. that's the approach that we've been taking. and those large trucks are a major portion of it. and maybe i should ask keith to talk to you about what could be done in terms of preparing them to either avoid an area such as this in a time of crisis with a storm, or whether or not there are requirements they should maybe have chains on their wheels in order to avoid these jack-knifes. >> reporter: mayor reed said he thought there was errors in that everyone was let out at the same time. do you agree, were there any errors made? >> obviously, there were errors. i think the mayor used a deskriptive term. like somebody blew a whistle and everyone left at the same time. that's exactly what happened. if we had blown the whistle earlier, would that have changed. i don't know. >> reporter: did you make the right call? >> we did under the circumstances of what we knew at that time. we alerted our state employees so they could leave earlier. get them off the roadways if they were in a position to leave. you know, we just got to learn the lessons from this. and they're hard lessons. and every situation manifests itself differently. it's not always the same way. we have always had emergency plans in place. sometimes they're adequate. sometimes they're not. let me ask keith, though, to talk about the situation with the 18-wheelers. >> thank you, governor. yes, after the 2011 event, which was really a totally different event. that event started at night on like a sunday night, monday mortga morning. we had 5 inches of accumulation very quickly, ice pack and we didn't get above freezing for four days. different event than today. to compare the two it's not necessarily totally fair. but what we did do after 2011 in legislation is 2011 we actually noticed that trucks were a problem and we continue to work on that. so, we actually got a statute passed that said we would require chains on tractor-trailers if we signed them into the region. that statute was passed. it's very difficult to do that. have you to understand, interstates are built to move commerce. looking at the event at 4:00, 5:00 in the morning and knowing we were looking for dustings, light dustings, maybe up to 2 inches would not have changed our response. as the governor said for us, at the department of transportation, we wouldn't have changed anything because we were still expecting heavy accumulation south of georgia. whether two hours north of cherokee or one hour north of cherokee. we could not have repositioned any of our folks. so, i don't know that we could have activated that. that's something we'll work with the department of public safety on and try to determine when's the best time to make that call to require tractor-trailers to have chains and when they come into the area they have the ability to have the traction and not have the impacts. >> reporter: were you able to stop any of the trucks coming in? at the point in time where everything was just shut down, are you able to stop the tractor-trailers from coming back into town? >> we started posting signage early yesterday afternoon advising tractor-trailers they should have chains. many did have chains. most of them do have chains as a part of their actual systems. so, we started doing that. we did not make it a mandatory event. we talked with the colonel about maybe in the next event what we would do differently and how we might could make that call. >> reporter: talk about your communication of strategy. did you or anybody have a conversation before this all happened to anticipate the possibility that on weekday, on a work day, that you might have what seems to be the catalyst, which is everybody hitting the roads at once, the communication to avoid that? >> i don't know if we went down to that level of planning. we take ever scenarios into play. in 2008 we had a similar event, people trying to get home from, work d a lot of walking. you try to take into consideration any options or do any scenarios. those are always taken -- yesterday, as i mentioned with the governor in speaking to him, it was challenging for us, again, that congestion did not allow us to get out and do the treatment. and i would second his notion that, you know, the actual delay of us getting out there was driven by the traffic. and, the -- >> reporter: i'm talking about communication with drivers. communication to the general public. don't go out on the roads. there seems to be little snippets in a broadcast here or a press release there. but never this, you know, getting to the bully pulpit and saying, stay off the roads tomorrow, folks. did you have that conversation? >> no. >> reporter: i was surprised when everyone -- >> reporter: we heard from people who call us, who e-mail us, you're looking at people coming from the 1982 storm, atlanta citizens, long-time citizens who say, we've been through this before, we saw this in '82, the storm was coming in and everybody was in the work day, nine, ten, 15-hour drive. the question we keep hearing over and over, why don't we learn anything in this state? why is it we're so caught offguard apparently every time one of these storms hits? >> i think we do need to drese that a little bit. having been through the 2011 experience, which was four days, we are far more activated faster than we ever were in '11. i was alive in '82, but i wasn't leading anything. so, the question is, there is no question if you go back to 2011 and you all pull all of your film, that the first two days we didn't do anything. and i take my share of blame. we started sanding at 9 a.m. after the alert. on sand and gravel. so, we fully mobilized all of our equipment, and we started partnering with the state by 10:00, 11:00 a.m. now, i understand people are frustrated and angry, but, you know, i couldn't stand here knowing that i was here in '11 and everybody thought the first two days of '11 was funny. it was like -- because it was sunday night when it happened. five inches came, 4 inches came. everybody knew the first two days were off. by the third day, i can tell you, it wasn't funny anymore. and you all didn't think it was funny. we're in day one. we're at about hour 16 right now. 120 pieces of state equipment have been mobilized. the national guard has been mobilized. the city of atlanta has been running 12-hour shifts. we've been running our spreaders and sanders nonstop. the issue is, and people are going to stop feeling frustration when we get people out of cars on the interstates. and, you know, i'll take credit -- i'll take credit or blame for my statement. we made a mistake by not staggering when people should leave. so, i'll take responsibility for that. we should -- lessons learned, because i know folks want to know that we're at least learning from this. please, remember, we're definitely better than we were in '11, and faster. but if we had it to do again, we would have said, schools, you go out, you go first. private sector businesses, you go second. and government goes last. so, i think that that would have helped and we should have been much clearer on our need to access the roads. >> reporter: mayor, that's why i think people are frustrated about -- >> reporter: to be proactive rather than reactive. >> we're going to break away from this press conference involving atlanta's mayor and the governor of the state of georgia, nathan deal. hello, i'm carol costello. >> i'm brooke baldwin. good afternoon to a lot of you on the east coast. my goodness. i think the word that comes to mind is mess. that's putting it nicely. >> i think it was apocalyptic. >> these are pictures we continue to see in the metro atlanta area. this is the story of the day. a lot of people outside the georgia area are shaking their heads wondering how this could happen with 2 inches of snow. let me tell you, people within atlanta are shaking their heads, wondering the compacted same thing up. just heard from the governor and the mayor specifically. and we'll play a part of your interview with mayor kasim reed. you were tough and rightly so. there is a lot that comes to blame deflection when it comes to city and state. first, chad myers is on the phone. we sent you to new orleans because of the icy cold conditions there. little did we know the story would be back here, cnn world headquarters in atlanta. i want you to respond to the city officials and statewide officials who constantly say, nope, they got it wrong. the meteorologists got it wrong. the national weather service got it wrong. we didn't know it would be this bad. your response. >> the forecast was 1 to 2 inches, brooke. we got 2.3. if that's wrong, then i take credit for being wrong. but at 2.3, when i said 1 to 2, i think so that's okay. and it came down at a time, at 1:00 to 2:00, when everybody tried to leave at the same time. and the mayor and the governor both had it right just now when they said we should not have let everybody out at the same time. on a normal friday, if i ring a bell at 2:00 in atlanta and i say, go, and everybody has to leave their house and leave their building and leigh their work to go and get their kids, to go to school, do whatever, you'll have a three-hour backup. no question on a regular, sunny day. >> but here's the thing -- here's the thing, chad. okay, so governor deal said that he -- you know, he can't predict mother nature. we

official declaration. the official declaration doesn't really do anything in terms of getting outside help or whatever. all it does is simply say that the state's resources will be available to local levels of government if they choose to ask us for that. and there were a minimal requests even now, from local levels of government for additional state assistance. >> if you declare a state of emergency and tell people to stay home, would that not have kept people -- south carolina and other states aren't dealing with the same sort of issue that we're dealing with and they declared the state of emergency before. >> you may be right. that is a lesson we need to look at and see whether or not it would have made a difference in this circumstance. >> yesterday, between 3:30 and 4:00 trying to get into the emergency center, but they said it wasn't activated. they told me they think there wasn't an emergency. how would you say there wasn't an emergency when kids were stranded at school? >> charlie, you want to answer? >> yes, sir. the state operations center was partially activated and that means that some key state agencies were in place. and we were talking to even more of those people over the phone and through e-mail and things of that nature and we were still gearing up for the reresponse, because at 2:00 or 3:00 yesterday, it had still not gotten terrible on the roads. >> at 3:30 or 4:00, it was terrible on the roads. >> it wasn't as gridlocked as it is now. >> governor, do you agree with that? >> i'm afraid i don't. because i was on the roads about that point in time, and it was getting to be gridlocked. the interstates were already experiencing major difficulties. side roads that people were trying to take to get off were experiencing difficulties. so, you know, we all have some lessons we need to learn here from this. and i think we all will take that away. whether or not the declaration would have changed the circumstances is a question i don't know the total answer to. we will talk with other departments such as local school superintendents as to whether or not they would have made a determination on their part had a declaration been issued earlier. i don't know whether that would have been the case or not. but certainly, all of that is the kind of thing that we have to evaluate. and will dictate whether or not we react in a different fashion at another point in time. hopefully it will not happen any time soon. but obviously this one is a bad situation and we're trying to deal with the realities now. >> some people are blaming you for the gridlock and the perception across the country is that georgia can't handle a storm like this. even al roker said it's a result of poor planning. >> well, i'm willing to take whatever blame comes my way. and if i'm responsible for it, i'll accept that. i think the important thing to understand, though, is that we have geared up by way of resources, the mayor has already outlined that as to what the city has done since 2011 when we had a similar storm. the state has allegation done that as well through d.o.t., and of course, here again calling in the national guard and the assistance of the state patrol, with the amount of equipment that is out there, we have much more equipment available. the problem was, though, the equipment could not function with so many people on the roadway and unable to move. now, i don't know the best way to solve that other than to start taking it gradually to unclog that part of congestion, and that's the approach that we've been taking, and those large trucks are a major portion of it. maybe i should ask keith to talk to you about what could be done in terms of preparing them to either avoid an area such as this in a time of crisis with the storm, or whether or not there are requirements that they should maybe have chains on the wheels in order to avoid these jackknives. >> he thought that everybody was let out at the same time. do you agree, or do you think there were any errors made? >> well, obviously, there were errors. if you think that the -- the mayor used a descriptive term. it's like somebody blew a whistle and everybody decided to leave at the exact same time and that's exactly what happened. whether or not we blew the whistle earlier, i don't know the answer to that. >> did you make the right call? >> well, i think we did under the circumstances of what we knew at the time. we alerted our state employees so that they could leave earlier, get them off the roadways if they were in a position to be able to leave. you know, we've just got to learn the lessons from this. there are hard lessons. and every situation manifests itself differently. it's not always the same way. we have always had emergency plans in place. sometimes they're adequate. sometimes they're not. let me ask keith to talk about the situation with the 18-wheelers. >> yes, after the 2011 event, which was really a totally different event, that event started at night. by monday morning, we had about five inches of accumulation and we didn't get above freezing for over four days. a really different event than the one we had today. to compare the two is not totally fair. but what we did do at the 2011 legislation is we actually noticed that trucks were a problem and we continued to work on that. so we actually got a statute passed that said we could require chains on tractor trailers. and so that statute was passed. but it's very difficult to do that. you have to remember the interstates are built to move commerce and that's the primary purpose of them. so looking at the event at 4:00, 5:00 in the morning and knowing that we were looking for dustings or light dustings, maybe up to two inches, we would not have changed our response. for us, the department of transportation, we wouldn't have changed anything because we were still expecting heavy accumulation south of georgia, whether it was two inches north in cherokee or one inch north of cherokee, we're looking at three to six inches in the middle part of the state. so we could not have repositioned any of our folks. i don't know that we would have activated that, but that's something we'll be working with the department of public safety on and trying to determine when's the best time to make that call to require tractor trailers to have chains and to make sure that when they come into the area they actually have the ability to have the traction and not have the impacts. >> at a point in time when everything was shut down, are you able -- >> we started posting signing early yesterday afternoon advising tractor trailers that they should have chains. and many did have chains. most of them do have chains as a part of their actual systems. so we started doing that. we did not make it a mandatory event. we talked with the colonel about maybe the next event, what we would do differently and how we might can make that call. >> your communications strategy. did you and the state have a conversation before this all happened to anticipate the possibility that on weekdays, on a workday, that you might have what seems to be the catalyst, which was everybody hitting the roads at once, to communicate before then to avoid that? >> i don't know that we went to that local planning, but we always take all kinds of scenarios into play. this is -- i think many people remember in 1982 we had an event where many people were trapped like this, trying to get home from work and had to do a lot of walking. but you always try to take into consideration any scenarios. i think that those are always taken -- yesterday, as i mentioned with the governor in speaking to him, it was very challenging for us -- again, that congestion did not allow us to get out and do the treatment. i would second his notion that the actual delay of us getting out there was really driven by the traffic. >> communication to the general public, don't go on the roads. >> we have been watching an extensive press conference being led there by the georgia governor, essentially trying to explain the mess you see on the other side of your screen there. an absolute mess in and around atlanta. the governor spending a great deal of time responding to questions about what left thousands of motorists stranded, school kids trapped in buses. also some of those kids having to spend the night inside those schools. the governor faced down a volley of tough questions about why they weren't better prepared. if you live in or around atlanta, you undoubtedly remember 2011 when an ice storm paralyzed that city for roughly a week. shortly after that ice storm, we heard a number of lawmakers in and around atlanta vow to do things differently. the governor essentially saying this time is basically the same as last time. private businesses, school districts making individual decisions yesterday, essentially deciding to allow folks to leave at the same time. the result, the mess you see on your screen right now. again, roughly three inches of snow and ice. we heard also during that news conference from the atlanta mayor reed addressing the traffic situation a short time ago. this is now stretching into its second day. >> we've got to get people out of their cars and get our interstates cleared up. and from the very first moment, in fact, on your station, i said that i thought that the error -- and we have shared responsibility for the error, was everybody letting out at once, which caused a massive traffic jam. >> there's the explanation. that was mayor kasim reed from an earlier news conference. these incredible images have been coming in all day. roads and interstates turned into park lots. cars crawling along. we've heard from folks who say that they were trapped on highways, upwards of seven, eight hours. that winter storm wreaking havoc. paralyzing not just the area around atlanta. southern states in general. 900 accidents reported in the greater atlanta area. almost eerie to see this happening just outside america's ninth largest city. these are some images from douglas county just west of atlanta. graveyard of cars and tractor trailers. the governor there is saying that these 18 wheelers have been a major part of the problem. these 18 wheelers that have gotten jackknifed on the interstate. blocking regular cars from passing. a lot of these cars haven't moved since yesterday afternoon, last night. several reports of people who say they had no choice but to spend the night in their vehicles. the governor saying that as of last night midnight there were roughly 100 school buses still trapped on those highways. the georgia national guard deployed last night in an effort to get food and water to people who were stuck. it was a similar problem for many of the schools around the region. again, without the buses to take those kids home, the decision was made to keep thousands of students and teachers at school overnight. >> my assistant principal and some other staff, they got into the cafeteria, started making some pizzas and we were able to feed all the kids, and after we fed them all, we took them back into the gym, played another movie. they eventually started falling asleep. >> the problems started yesterday afternoon as that snow began to fall. mayor reed says everyone hit the road at the same time, offering a valuable lesson for atlanta going forward. >> if there were one major lesson learned in the middle of this challenge, that would be that we need to stagger closings for private sector companies, for government, and for the school system. >> we're also getting a closer look at the road conditions causing these traffic problems. wxia reporter jeremy campbell filed this report, standing in what is normally one of atlanta's busiest interstates. >> i'm standing in the middle of interstate 85. this is one of the main arteries of atlanta. and as you can see, it is at a complete standstill. the city of atlanta is virtually shut down, and it's been this way since rush hour last night. drivers left work trying to escape the wintery weather. little did they know they would be stuck in this gridlock in the cold weather. all because of this. if you take a look, you can see that the roadway is coated in ice. it's so slick, you can barely even walk on it, much less drive. so dangerous that 500 students were kept at school last night, away from their home because authorities deemed it was too dangerous for them to try to transport the students home. and that just may have been a good decision, when you look at the ones who tried to make it, you realize they just couldn't get through the storm. in atlanta, jeremy campbell, back to you. >> all right, jeremy, thank you again. late word now, atlanta hartsfield international is open. they say there have been a number of cancellations there, encouraging folks to check their flight status before they head to the airport. also, we heard from the governor a short time ago. state government is going to be closed there tomorrow. one of the more telling moments during that news conference, when asked by a reporter whether he should have declared a state of emergency sooner, governor deale admitting, "you may be right." we're going to continue to follow the breaking news out of atlanta, but when we come back, we'll turn to the president's state of the union speech and the day after mr. obama hits the road. 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[ male announcer ] you're welcome. ready? go. >>> it is you, our citizens, who make the state of our union strong. few things exposed hardworking families to economic hardship more than a broken health care system. and in case you haven't heard, one of the problems is fixing that. america does not stand still and neither will i. >> let's get back to washington and the possibility of a political fall, maybe. the president pledging last night to ability on his own authority when necessary, but that does not mean that he's letting congress off the hook entirely. congressman charlie rangel, a democrat from new york. congressman, always good to see you, sir. for the second year in a row, president obama used his speech to call on you and your colleagues to raise the minimum wage. at this point, do we think that's something that's going to be able to happen and happen soon? >> i don't know about how soon, but i really am very, very optimistic in here in washington. the american people are fed up with washington. they're fed up with the congress, republicans and democrats. the president is making an appeal to the american people to do the right thing. these are not democrat and republican issues. and what has to be made clear, craig, is that we're not talking about the republican party. we're talking about a handful of republicans that are holding the entire congressional republican caucus hostage. all the speaker has to do is to ask his people to vote either f for or against the president. another thing that makes me optimistic is if the tea party is allowed to poison the face of the entire republican party on a national level, what i've been saying is not one republican can give me the name of one republican candidate that has a platform to stand on if they're going to run anyone for president. and so we're not talking about just people hating obama and hating democrats. we're talking about the country. >> what did you think in general, congressman, of this speech last night in broad terms? >> i was inspired. because a lot of democrats should have hit the republicans a little harder, but you can't do that. >> why couldn't he have done that? >> because there are a lot of republicans that want to cooperate with the president. take immigration. there's no question in my mind that if the speaker of the house would allow all the republicans just to vote their conscience in their district, we would have it. take the extended unemployment compensation. they're not unemployed democrats. they're unployed americans that have worked hard and lost their jobs. but the fact is they made a pact that even the tea party agrees on there's no vote ordered by the republicans. so i am optimistic that we can do these things. the last time the republicans in the house refused to allow the president to vote on it the debt ceiling, wall street came to washington and talked to the republicans and they allowed themselves to vote and saved the nation's fiscal economy. >> speaking of your republican colleagues, congressman michael grimm, your fellow new yorker. he made some headlines after the speech. there he is right there. made the headlines after the speech. has made some threatening remarks to a reporter. threatened to, as you know, toss him over the balcony there. also used some language that we can't use here on cable news in the afternoon. he issued a non-apology last night. kelly o'donnell caught up with mr. grimm a couple moments ago and this is what he said. >> it was harsh. >> yeah, it shouldn't have happened. the bottom line is, i lost my cool and it shouldn't have had. but that's why, you know, i apologized. i'm not going to answer any more questions. i answered your questions, so please be respectful to me. >> to the ethical issues, will you give a more full statement about where that stands? >> i think i've done that for the last two years. >> congressman, what's your response? what do you say about michael grimm? >> a lot of us may have thought that many times. >> don't walk away, congressman. >> felt annoyed, felt embarrassed, back against the wall that you don't have an adequate answer, felt ill-prepared and felt embarrassed and responded in an unprofessional way. and this is not what happens. when you disagree with those people, they have a job to do. they're supposed to ask the hard questions. and like truman said, if the kitchen's too hot, get the heck on out of it. >> congressman charlie rangel, we will leave it there. congressman, again, i hope that you haven't been threatening reporters down in the capitol. that doesn't sound like the congressman that i know. >> you can depend on me not doing that. >> all right, thank you, sir. do appreciate you. >>> pocketbook issues now. from minimum wage to student loan debt. lots of pocketbook issues came up. when they did, so did one order word -- congress. >> this congress needs to restore the unemployment insurance you just let expire for 1.6 million people. i want to work with congress to see how we can help even more americans who feel trapped by student loan debt. in the year since i asked this congress to raise the minimum wage, five states have passed laws to raise theirs. to reach millions more, congress does need to get onboard. >> republican senator john barrasso represents the state of wyoming. three things. unemployment insurance, extending those emergency benefits, raising the minimum wage, and infrastructure spending. those are three things that in the past, republicans -- even republicans in congress had been onboard with. what's changed? why not now? >> well, thanks for having me, craig. a couple of things. you and i and your viewers know how important it is for someone to have a job. in terms of their ego, their human dignity, the way they view themselves, self-worth. so i think it's very important. and the idea of unemployment benefits for those first 26 weeks, if someone's out of work, to find a job is very important to help them. we've had a terrible economic situation, so we've had this emergency program in place. i'm willing to vote to extend it, if it's actually paid for by cutting spending other places. >> let me just ask you this question, when it was extended five times under the previous president, there were no pay fors. why a pay for now? what's changed? >> we have a $17 trillion debt in this country. i've been traveling the state of wyoming, visiting in high schools, grade schools, senior centers. people of all ages are very concerned for our country's future with this level of debt. the second thing you asked me about was the minimum wage. a year ago, the president said raise it to $9. last night, he wanted to raise it to $10.10. unfortunately, under the president's health care law, we see more and more people being forced into a part-time work. a part-time economy. that doesn't help people take home adequate pay. so i don't think that raising the minimum wage is the answer. i think it's trying to help people find jobs, find careers, getting people, america back to work. many people have actually given up looking for jobs in this economy. >> so, senator, it sounds like you don't support raising the minimum wage right now. >> no, i support trying to get people back to work and converting part-time work to full-time work. >> i wanted to go back to something else you said about the debt. i'm not here to defend the president, but i think the facts are important. and you have to acknowledge that the share of the debt -- the share of the debt with regards to the gdp, the lowest that it's been in roughly three decades in this country. it's dropped by half since president obama has been in office. so what's your response to that? explain -- reconcile those two things for me. >> well, the total debt of the united states accumulated by the presidents all the way up to president obama, when you take a look at what he added to the top of that, i think it's almost doubled the amount of debt that we've had as a nation. and we owe that money to other people. some of it overseas to china. i think it doesn't help us as a nation to have that kind of debt looming over the heads of kids and grandkids. >> all right, senator john barrasso, of wyoming. i wish we had more time. >> thanks for having me, craig. >>> still ahead, critics are wondering if president obama said nearly enough. we're going to pose that question to antoinette tuft, the atlanta school employee who used compassion and kind words to keep an unstable gunman from unleashing terror on an elementary school last year. >>> also, the power panel parentally standing by. we'll get to them after this. b? it's eb. want to give your family the very best in taste, freshness, and nutrition? 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i want to start with where we just left off with senator barrasso. when i asked him about raising the minimum wage in this country. we've seen the polling. we know how popular it is, not just with the average american. but with republicans as well. why that response? >> i think that republicans are kind of caught in a feedback loop. it has to do in part with their base. their base needs them to continually oppose president obama no matter what, even on issues that are really not core issues for the voter. the minimum wage is not an ideological issue for conservatives or republicans. at least it didn't use to be. but it is when it's attached to the person of president obama. anything attached to him. you also asked the senator about the national debt. >> right. >> the national debt fell year over year from the end of world war ii all the way until reagan and then started this incredibly steep line that we haven't ended, except for clinton. they used to say -- dick cheney saidficits don't matter. but when a democrat is in office, deficits matter. >> polls show, as you say, a majority of republicans support increase in the minimum wage. and if you look at not just the specific policies, but the context of how you talk about the poor and income inequality. i mean, people are just much more tolerant and forgiving and accepting of their fellow americans than some of the language you hear from republicans. >> this isn't about defending the president. the facts are facts. and when it comes to the debt and deficit, it's difficult to deny that we are far better off as a country as it relates to the gdp than we were just five years ago. so let's get to the speech from last night. i want to talk to you about the content of the speech, because it's an even-numbered year, a midterm election. it seemed at times that the president was checking boxes. take a listen. >> this congress needs to restore the unemployment insurance you just let expire for 1.6 million people. help more kids access the high quality pre-k that they need. it should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts that drives our democracy. america must move off a permanent war footing. let's get immigration reform done this year. >> how much of what we heard last year was a campaign speech for dems? >> 101%. [ laughter ] and by the way, the rebuttal was -- >> we're going to get to that in just a moment. >> but look, the president touched on everything. he hit syria, he hit iran, he hit afghanistan. hit it clearly. he hit ui. he hit the eitc. 27 million americans are on the earned income tax credit. get it. i bet you they're not all democrats. at some point the republicans are going to wake up and realize. who was the chief proponent of the eitc in the congress? former maine republican senator olympia snowe. are they going to extend it? the point here is he was clear on every single one of those issues, every one of them. he had policy proposals for every single one of those issues. six more high-tech manufacturing hubs across the country. >> was the speech too wide ranging? did he focus on too much? >> i don't think so. you have a lot of people today saying this was a very modest speech, but if you look at -- well, one, the frame. the frame is a year of action. and that's a good contrast with republicans in the house who have literally shut down the government. so that's a clear contrast. it's not just about a laundry list of proposals. and also, if we're able to get some movement on some of the things we talked about, that we talked about last night, whether it's immigration or infrastructure or preschool, income inequality, women's equality, those are some major -- >> in fact, it was passed this morning. it was a populous speech without sounding too progressive. >> it was interesting. i saw the speech as kind of an invitation. the president was very energetic. he was very -- i thought in a way sort of magnanimous to republicans, that sort of nod to john boehner being the son of a bar keep it was an invitation. saying the american people and i are going this way. we want to create jobs. give america a raise. this is what we want to do. and congress, come on. he didn't really attack them. a lot of people on the left are annoyed that he didn't use the speech to really beat up on the republican party because i think he was trying to leave some space open for any republicans who remain who do want to make a deal. >> especially on immigration. >> i think even on things like minimum wage and extending unemployment insurance benefits. they're trying to leave the door open. >> you wrote something that caught our attention with regards to the response. >> which one? >> well, one of the four or five responses from last night. the officiale came from congresswoman cathy mcmorris-rodgers. here's a snippet. >> so when i showed my animals at the county fair, my parents used to say to me, cathy, you need to save this money so you can go to college one day. i came to congress to help empower people, not politicians. >> you wrote that this was something like your words. the american gothic republican response. what did you mean by that, jimmy williams? >> so we have this sort of faulty picture that the congresswoman was portraying, which is she grew up on a farm in eastern washington, blah blah blah. and she made it. her parents said save your money, you're going to make it. the american dream. great. congratulations. that's what most americans can do. and now you're sitting in the united states capitol, a nice fire burning behind and looking remarkably refined. great. what are your policy proposals to make that dream better for everybody? here's what she said. we have plans to improve our education and training programs. >>

official declaration. the official declaration doesn't really do anything in terms of getting outside help or whatever. all it does is simply say that the state's resources will be available to local government if they chose to ask us for that. and there were minimal requests, even now, from local levels of government for additional state assistance. >> reporter: couldn't that have kept people off the roads, though? if you declare a state of emergency and wouldn't that have kept people -- north carolina and other states aren't dealing the same issue we're dealing with because they declared a state of emergency before the storm hit. >> you may be right. that's a les

official declaration. the official declaration doesn't really do anything in terms of getting outside help or whatever. all it does is simply say that the state's resources will be available to localif they choose to ask us for that. and there were a minimal requests even now, from local levels of government for additional state assistance. >> if you declare a state of emergency and tell people to stay home,