and the attitude of white people. when i was growing up, my father did not mind people calling him by his first named. his first name was qp. in the court case, they ask, what does that stand for? it stood for quinnith paul. the white people use to just call him jordy and they would call his son, boy. even the teachers and the faculty members of my school said they never called him buy anything other than his first name. and he was a professor of alabama state. so i have seen all of that change. it is an attitude change. and as my sister called it, a cosmetic change. they say, dixie had a cosmetic change. they have the same mental attitude haas racists, but they cannot call you girl and gal anymore. to me, they are over-polite. in my experience in the hotel -- ms. colvin, how can i help you? it is a little over-polite, and i get tired of it sometimes. [laughter] now, you remember i live in new york, the big apple. help me to stay the word -- say the word -- i do not want to sound like sarah palin -- [laughter] what is

now the white house is responding. y weiner asked her to lie about their communications. breaking news. political headline and jeannie moos straight ahead. you nrt situation room. fresh fallout from the u.s. commando raid that killed osama bin laden. pakistani authorities have rounded up people who may have helped the u.s. track the al qaeda leader and that's adding to the strains on a badly frayed relationship. brian, what are you learning? >> it's not clear if the people are still in custody and not clear if they will be prosecuted. what is clear is in the wake of bin latten's killing, this is more evidence of a fractured alliance. pakistan arrest and detained and detained informants before the raid on the compound according to pakistani officials. some were arrested in the safe house used to spy on bin laden the response from washington? >> it's not always an easy relationship, but it is vital. >> the arrests took place shortly after bin laden was killed. i spoke with national security analyst peter bergen >> how cru

the feeling is very positive at the white house. hris: despite all of the wrong direction numbers for the economy and country in general? >> absolutely. you're hearing in a couple of speeches he did earlier this year, these were speeches the democratic partisan fund-raisers, he did not go on the attack. he did not do sort of the usual campaign stop. this is the hard core of his campaign. chris: are they happy with the outlook for the candidates? are they happy they can beat the field they're looking at? >> two things. the one thing is they're extraordinarily concerned about the economy and spike in oil prices that can derail the recovery and mean it's impossible for him to win. and at the same time they look at the republican field and say, you've got to be kidding. our guy, he has more talent in his little finger than any of these republicans and they have to put someone on the field eventually. our guy will run them straight over. that's what they think. chris: that's what i think. there's a disconnect here. from the opportunity of

over whether the white house needs approval from congress to be there at all. president obama says it's all perfectly legal, but some leaders in congress say, not so fast, there's something called the war powers act, it was passed for a reason and the president can't just ignore it. nbc's kristen welker has more tonight from the white house. >> reporter: as the fighting in libya drags on, tensions over the united states involvement there are mounting. >> the white house says there are no hostilities taking place. yet we have got drone attacks underway. >> we don't think it's helpful for congress to send mixed messages. >> reporter: at issue, does president obama need congressional approval to continue the u.s. role in the nato led military effort. the war powers act, enacted during the vietnam war, says the president has to get the green light from congress for military operations lasting longer than 90 days. >> the executive branch has never really acceded to it's constitutionality. >> reporter: in a 32-page report released on wednesday, the white house asserte

it's almost as if the white house is saying, yes, please say you disagree with us. so -- gwen: so the president looks tougher? >> looked tougher. comes in as a commander in chief. you've read about the last time that he felt a little bit put in a box by the commanders. and he was a new commander in chief. he isn't anymore. and he's had success. and he has his national security juice now. and he's using it to do this. so i think the numbers really are the president saying exactly that. you know, let's also remember the civilian -- civilian control of the military. and he is asserting that in a big way. >> i asked that question about -- at the white house several times this week. are you a little uncomfortable with this clear distance between the president and general petraeus, the most famous general in america? they said no, that's fine. that's fine. he's the commander in the field. it's fine with us. that was in a sense choreographed and the white house was perfectly happy as martha said. >> perfectly happy to explain that it was the white house telling us that. >>

you're going to cover the white house for a big network. you have the big opportunities coming your way. you've covered the pentagon. i want to ask you how it fits together in terms of dollars and cents. we have a "new york times" report from helene here the other day -- $15 billion the first year we were over there. $120 billion. we keep hearing about there's no shovel-ready projects in detroit. how come they're spending all this money over there? >> that's the sales job that the president has to make is that, why are you rebuilding afghanistan and not rebuilding america? but military officials that i speak to say, look, we're drawing down the costs. they're going to drop already this year from $160 billion to $120 billion. we're drawing down. the white house says we're drawing down from a position of strength. but there's still so much money being spent in afghanistan. and with the public now acutely aware of our budget deficit, how do you make the argument that we should be spending that amount of money in iraq and afghanistan? chris: how

hey, you want to swing by the white house for a cocktail? initely thought about it. >> piers, asking about chicks, come on. governor chris christie did, however, weigh in on the current race among republicans. and in fact, he didn't seem too impressed by the current field. >> none of them have emerged, in my mind yet, as the best option. when one of them do, i'll say it publicly, but i'm not ready to do that yet because i don't think any of them have yet distinguished themselves. >> so what does chris christie think of texas governor rick perry who is thinking about making a run for the white house? the two are in new york city. and did you hear about the other high-profile republicans perry is also meeting with today? jessica yellin is standing by. she is next. >> are you ready to take this country back and stand with us over the course of the next 16 months? car connection calls the xf, yet an instant classic." with sports car styling and power, plus the refinement and space of a luxury sedan, the jaguar xf is a timeless blend of performanc

and the white house reporter. t's start with the baby important news of the weekend, the golf summit. any substance to that? guest: it was really more about the speaker and the president forming a bit of a relationship as they try to do business. most immediately the debt ceiling vote and the deficit reduction that the vice president has talked about. it was an interesting moment because barack obama is not someone who mixes business and pleasure, particularly on the weekend. this is something he has not done with any member of congress. there's a lot of intrigue from the press corps to see him and the speaker kicking back and having a couple drinks afterward. both of them had a good time. they won a bet. there was another funny thing they did which, we were wondering if they released to the score. they fixed this of the speaker and the president played together so they came away winners. host: is there any significance to this get together? guest: it depends if they do it again. if it becomes a regular kind of thi

real growth stories from silicon valley to china to the white house's backyard. as we take a break, take a look at the stock market and how it ended the week. back in a moment. >>> welcome back. boone pickens is a man with a plan. most everybody agrees america needs to cut its dependence on foreign oil. but boone pickens is one of the few people who actually has a road map on how to get there. boone joins me now with a lot more. great to have you on the program, boone. welcome. >> thank you, maria. >> let me kick it off with sort of where we are in the calendar. we're about to enter the height of the summer driving season. where do you see gasoline prices going short-term and over the long-term? >> short-term we may be kind of stabilized. but we'll pick it up again. and it will be higher by the end of the year. >> boone, you've been talking about your plan, the pickens plan in which you want to end america's dependence on opec oil. it certainly is a tall order. and you want to start with getting america's trucks converted to liquid natural gas. how do you propose

suffice to say the white house is not happy. next, the day's other big headlines include big demonstrations in both syria and yemen. [ male announcer ] at quicken loans, we're a mortgage company with one very simple philosophy: every client, every time, no exceptions, no excuses. maybe that's why j.d. power and associates ranked us "highest in customer satisfaction in the united states." so, we thought we'd take a little time to celebrate. ♪ all right, then, back to work helping clients. outstanding client service. just one more example of how everything we do at quicken loans is engineered to amaze. with new extra-strength bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles, enters the bloodstream faster and rushes relief to the site of pain. it's clinically proven to relieve pain twice as fast. new bayer advanced aspirin. look at all this stuff for coffee. oh there's tons. french presses, espresso tampers, filters. it can get really complicated. not nearly as complicated as shipping it, though. i mean shipping is a hassle. not with p

and i will tell you, she made a lot of money in the white house too. we often don't think about that. first ladies since her have written book, but nobody's had the kind of money-making career that she had in the white house. now, how did she learn to do all this, or what inspired her to do it? who did she draw ideas from? because she didn't have any experts in public relations or in spin devices or in focus group kinds of things. she did this herself. but i think she borrowed ideas from a rather small groupover personal friends. now, what made eleanor roosevelt an upper class patrician? the roosevelt family's one of the 400 families in new york society. what made her write a newspaper column that related to people like my mother? well, she had a lively intelligence, genuine interest in others, and i think she learned from some of her personal friends a lot about communicating with just average folks like us. let me read you just a little bit of this "my day" column so you get the idea. this is from a 1938 column, and it's headlined, "i felt very guilty

and, you know, some of that comes as what of a surprise to the white house. xelrod, one of the president's top political advisers, was talking to candy crowley on "state of the union" on sunday saying if jon huntsman had a problem with our economic policy, why didn't he say something when he was ambassador to china? here is what david axelrod had to say. >> i think he is a very bright fluent person. it was a little surprising to me, because when we were in shanghai, we got a chance to talk and this was the fall of 2009, about what the president was doing. so i was surprised when he emerged as a candidate. >> reporter: now, huntsman' campaign has fired back calling axelr axelrod's comments absurd. what is interesting to see somebody going after his former boss running for the white house. not something you see very often in american political history. but it is something that jon hutsman is going to have to do if he is going to overcome this obama taint that some conservatives see huntsman as having at this point. he is going to try it up in new hampshire today

the subject of white-nose is important to force managers. wildlife and mergers and cultural producers and members of the public. the service is contributing to the larger effort to better understand white-nose syndrome is playing a role in hibernation sites in caves and abandoned or active mines. the service is to sustain the gulf, diversity and productivity of the nation's forest and grasslands to meet the needs of the present and future generations. this includes the health, diversity and productivity of many species that use the nation's forest and grasslands as habitat including bats. i'm going to focus my remarks on what we are doing to try to coordinate and collaborate as opposed to cash the number of a science topics. so the coordination and cooperation among all parties involved in addressing white-nose syndrome as critical to address, to arrest the spread of white-nose syndrome. the service is committed to partnership and cooperation with other federal, state, tribal, wildlife management agencies, universities, industrial and non-ind

the construction zone will shift to the white center lane of the d.c. side and three lanes routed to the left. one lane to the right. the project should be completed this fall >> metro is preparing a budget proposal. it wants to attack the problems with escalators and elevators. it will assign 10 additional employees to work in the maintenance division. they say they could use 55 more workers, which will cost $7 million. right now 130 metro escalators are broken at train platforms. that's about one in five. an independent consultant says poor maintenance led to so many down escalator the and elevators. >>> well, pictures took the top five spots. one of them was a local star. seattle native for the university of virginia with the number 2 pick. no washington or virginia player has ever been taken higher than that. the graduate posted 11 wins this year and uva all time leader in wins and strikeouts >> nationals were hoping he would fall to their pick at number 6 but gladly took the nation's top third baseman inside. they pictured anthony rendon. he has po

when he entered the white house the stock market at 6,000, now at about 11,000, almost a doubling.c growth, increase in job creation, increase in the stock market in our lifetime. this is a president who has had a miraculous economic record, still got a long way to go given the unemployment rate but the trend lines were going wrong when president obama entered office and trend lines are in the right direction two years after entering. >> goolsbee is going back to chicago. p can pawlenty and rick santorum carry out like mike huckabee did in iowa? >> things are backsliding, unemployment is higher, and it's been characterized higher every month in the obama administration than it was the entire eight years of the bush administration. the focus for republicans is largely going to center on spending, getting the economy moving forward, and then social issues yes are always important but i think they'll take a little bit of a back seat this election to things like the economy and getting this country moving forward. >> julian, is that something you agree with? >> i think you asked alex a

the reception to the white house and this welcomed as i see a testament. n't safely say of the claims of the many leaders of german, all of the names with reservations (inaudible) and grateful for the german asylum and the second world war in united states. we have a broad base of students. we have corporations and work in aerospace, we share a lot of success. i mentioned the 50,000 soldiers, that are present today in germany, very welcomed indeed in my country. let me say without the united states of america, i in all probability could not stand before you today, to overcome the cold war in europe, and it required western partners of many decades where many have had long, lost hope in europe and many didn't want this. but then the president walker said that european unity is something that deserves our support. so there are a lot of talks we have in common, a lot of challenges to meet together. we are doing this in the spirit of freedom, we want to bring these to bear on the international agenda. we were dealing with and ever since the month of january, wi

ike arrived at the white house at 12:38 p.m. following a short briefing, he strode into the cabinet room where 18 men were waiting. the vice president and the top leadership of both the state and defense departments including the joint chiefs. this was a could council of war. admiral ratford briefed the president regarding the steps of the joint chiefs. we're prepared to assure readiness for fighting a major war with the soviet union. eisenhower reviewed each step urging careful and deliberate implementation. then his son broke from behind, and the president was informed in the middle of this meeting that british prime minister anthony was available by phone. eisenhower interrupted the meeting to take the call, and he confirmed in that conversation that eaton had ordered a cease fire in egypt. this was a tense conversation, it's much more detailed than i'm presenting here, a tense conversation with a clearly-resentful eden. ike asked if british compliance of the cease fire would be without condition, and eden growled, we cease fi

we believe in the east room of the white house. ting plenty of advice and pressure from members of congress. war fatigue reaching across party lines. joining us is our senior congressional correspondent, dana bash. it seems like in the tea party movement a growing fatigue with this war that's gone on now for some ten years. >> reporter: there is among tea party backed republicans and veteran republicans i talked to today who are simply saying that they are hearing from their constituents back home, anderson, that they've had enough. it is time to bring the troops home. you definitely get a sense that this is a goldilocks strategy that the president is pushing forward here. he just thinks he's doing it just right because he does have both republicans and democrats here in congress. it's a growing number. both of them saying that it is just not enough. he needs to bring many more troops home than he's going to say tonight. on the other hand you have republicans and democrats saying that they believe that he's going too far and that it

the white house should be concerned about the numbers.ericans think the economy is in bad shape. and many disapprove the way the president is handling it. >> the republicans set the agenda. another day goes by and there is not a jobs agenda that has come to the floor. >> president obama is pleading to the american public to hang in there. >> we have ways to go. there will be bombs on the road to recovery. -- bumps on the road to recovery. >>> taking a look at the day ahead, a woman accused in a fatal hit-and-run accident is expected to go on trial today. she is of columbia, md. -- [inaudible] davidson was arrested and charged with the wide. the search resumes -- dui . >>> and the search continues for a swimmer that has gone missing. he got pulled under the water. swimming is prohibited in the reservoir. >>> there was a democrat in caroline county, virginia. -- deadly crash in caroline county, virginia. they are requiring travelers -- drivers to maintain a valid license. one measure requires periodic inspection. >>> 6:36. get ready for a n

involvement in libya for failing to get congressional approval the white house for its part claims it is not in violation of the law because it's not actually at war but is operating in a support role first i kind of want to look at that i want to throw up a graphic so you can decide what you think the u.s. involvement has been in libya take a look so those are all the u.s. resources when you think about planes and ships and flights and now look at it you know compared to another nato ally like the u.k. quite a different look at it next to france again quite a difference this is not exactly up to today's date but it represents the first couple months of this military intervention you can decide what kind of a role you think the united states has had how significant it is and has been but here to talk a little bit more about it and to analyze really the legality of this all and how significant this all is is david swanson he is author of this book war is alive because you're right there and he joins us now thank you david for being here now this lawsuit from these time members of congr

the white house says don't let your ears feel you. this is not a war. at is the defense to a lawsuit filed yesterday by several lawmakers. they say the president actually broke the law by not getting congress sign off on the military action. brianna keilar is at the white house. you have your hands on the report. give us the headlines. >> reporter: yeah, this is the report. 32 pages yesterday that the white house sent over to congress, kyra. a big headline has to do with cost, because we hadn't seen exact figures until this went up to the hill. 715 million dollars, that's the cost so far, through june 3rd for u.s. military involvement in libya so that stands to reason it's closer to about 800 million dollars now. and there is a projected cost for going through the end of september. that would be $1.1 billion. the other big headline here, the president's legal rational for why he hasn't sought congressional authorization to have troops committed abroad as the war process the law says he must do within 60 days or pull troops off 30 days after that. they sa

nbc's kristen welker live for us at the white house. that on the heels of that leaked "new york times" trial balloon of yesterday shows that the president may be leaping much harder toward a larger withdrawal this summer than we thought. also, tell us about what to expect today with chancellor merkel. >> right, chuck. good morning to you. first to start with that "new york times" article, just to put it in perspective, yesterday we learned that there were potentially calls for a secret troop withdrawal from afghanistan. president obama making those comments, the strongest comments he has made yet about the situation in afghanistan, really providing an interesting insight into his mindset as he prepares to make a decision about the pace of troop withdrawals, but white house officials are saying officially that a decision will come fairly soon. just yesterday, the president had his monthly meeting with his national security team and he was briefed by secretary of defense robert gates via video conference about the situation in afghanistan.

. >>> a showdown looms between the white house and congress. lawmakers demanding that the president explain the military mission in libya and fast. >>> the prosecution expected to rest in the case of -- or in the -- or casey anthony trial. her mother burst into tears as she testified by the items found with the remains of her 2-year-old granddaughter caly. >>> josh stone was the target of a bizarre murder plot. swords, rope, a body bag found in the suspect's car. they are now in custody. ♪ >>> we begin with the shocking update on the hunt for osama bin laden and the informants in pakistan who helped the cia track him down. now, in the u.s., they would be heroes. but in pakistan, they are arrested. resa, what are they saying? >> reporter: yeah. kyra. according to the pakistani officials, the isi, pakistan top spy agency has arrested several suspected informants for the cia. pakistani men who allegedly helped the cia and fed them information before the big raid on the bin laden compound last month. not clear why the men were arrested and what, if

two weeks ago i was in the white house. i was in a meeting with president obama and the president was asked not once, not twice, he was asked three times, mr. president, what is -- a private, closed-door meeting, what is your plans for medicare? what are you going to do to save it to so it doesn't go flat broke like we know it will in the not-too-distant future? you know what the president's plan is. this hasn't been talked about very much. the president's plan for senior citizens is obama-care. we all think for our senior is going to go on. i think very likely -- and i'm speculating, i think very likely what the president intends is that medicare will go broke. and that ultimately that answer will be obama care for senior citizens. what else would the plan be? if he's not intending to save it, knowing full well what the numbers in front of our eyes that it is certain bankruptcy for our senior citizens and he's willing to allow that to happen, then that will mean our senior citizens will face obama care knowing full well tha

involvement in libya for failing for him to get congressional approval now the white house claims that it's not actually in violation of the law because it says the u.s. is not actually at war but is just operating in a support role well first i want to throw up a few figures a little bit of a pictorial graphic so you can decide what you think the u.s. his involvement has been let's look at this so when you see it depicted in pictures all of those forces and ships and planes represent the u.s. commitment to libya for the first couple months of it now let's look at you know compared to another let's take the u k. we're very have it why a difference when you look at the number of those little plane you see there and maybe you will that needed someone else was stepping up let's say france they're really pushing for this intervention yeah not quite the commitment of the united states over the course of this operation so you're going to fight what you make of those figures but earlier i spoke to david swanson about this he's author of this book you see here war is a lie and i asked him beca

we haven't heard from the white house. gress asked dozens of questions of president obama and the biggest has to do with why he hasn't stopped authorization. what is the goal in libya and how he is going to achieve it and the cost. i spoke earlier with bob corker of tennessee and he authored one of the resolutions asking a lost these questions. here's why he said they need to be answered >> that's easy to enter these conflicts when you have no stated goal. that's kind of where we are now. all of a sudden the ante is upped and the situation is difficult. i would like for the president to articulate what our national interest is there and what the goals are on the ground. >> what exactly will the president tell congress and what case will he make for being in libya. we don't know. it's possible some of his answers to congress's questions are not going to like, but we know they are coming tomorrow or on thursday. >> thanks very much. we know you will be all over the story for you. a leading republican voice is warning congress

so the bottom line for the white house they believe is that since u.s. not have boots on the ground, therefore they are on pretty solid legal ground. >> then there's this bipartisan suit filed today to the courts to basically take the administration to court. there are some direct claims made in that suit that are refuted tonight by the white house. >> reporter: well, that's right. there's been a lot of criticism from up on capitol hill that the white house has not really kept them sort of up to speed, informed along the way as to the mission, the goal, how much this will cost, when the u.s. will no longer be involved in libya. and the white house went out of its way in that document to show that there has been extensive information passed along to members of congress, some of their staffs as well. over six-pages in those 32 pages of that memo or that report that was sent to congress detailing the phone calls, the conference calls, the briefings, dozens of briefings, and also status e-mails that were sent to congressional staffers. >> jeff, from a legal s

the other thing is that we're having a demonstration next to the white house for the syrian people at 2:00 p.m., so please help us. i am saying that because they were taken down. facebook took them down. seriously, so what happens. >> this is key, because i will personally send an e-mail to someone at facebook about that. what happens on facebook is that if you have any enemies, if anybody talking about political issues does, they will report you. they can click report and have the page taken down. facebook is a huge platform so we have to give them some credit. they can i get to every case right away. but when you report someone, it needs to trigger a takedown and then it goes to the human review process, and they say, if there is anything in arabic, they cannot read it. you have problems around getting a page back up. what i say to that is, if your page gets taken down but 20 more of in its place. that is the only answer. i do not know how else to get that for facebook's head. it is not fair. and it happened in egypt with that we are all tahrir page. facebook took the pace down beca

house task force on the middle class prior to his still white house he worked for the economic policy institute was the deputy chief economist at the u.s. department of labor currently he's a senior fellow at the center for budget and policy priorities and given our nation's current economic problems he's the man to talk to it's one pleased to welcome in the studio here dr jerry bernstein thank you tom thanks for joining us a pleasure. and first of all just a personal question if i may. many musical prodigies were also mathematical privacies you know it's a great example there's a math the music you started out music how did you end up you know to me. i'm not sure if you know. new music is just a huge part of my life it always has been. it was very drawn to music early on but interestingly i think there is a connection there i always liked math and statistics and ultimately being a musician i think in another wrinkle here is being a musician i felt i wasn't really doing enough on kind of the political economy side of life i was brought up in a household where if you're not part of the

the new poll that could have the white house extremely happy about a concern congressman who can't keep his pants on. >>> chaos. yemen, syria, libya. violent clashes across the arab world leave scores dead and fresh fears. all order in the region is quickly being lost. >>> and, yes, the distinguished gentleman. brooklyn's most talked about wiener tries to salvage what's left of his political career, hir marriage, his name. can he do it, or is he just cooked? >>> if there's one person today who may actually be glad of the attention swirling around anthony wiener, it may be the president himself. the congressman's digital deceit has been exposed and the tabloid newspapers are in no doubt as to what is the most important story of the day. the naked truth says the "new york post." yeah, i'm a schmuck says the quk new york daily news." but there are other headlines that have nothing to do with sexting and everything to do with the increasingly perilous state of the nation. sausm today says the country owes not $1.5 trillion but $62 trillion in unfunded obligations which means that every hous

the biggest name for last, me. (laughter) >> stephen: later tonight jack white and i are going to present my new hit song, so wake thes and ask them who jack white is. (laughter) >> stephen: but first, afghanistan. last night the president addressed the nation from the east room of the white house, or as it's been officially renamed,the i killed bin laden room. (laughter) >> stephen: personally i thought it was in poor taste for them to put up the championship banner. (laughter) >> stephen: anyway, you've all heard the headlines. he has ordered a withdrawal from afghanistan which means obama's a coward for leaving. or for not leaving sooner. i forget which. (laughter) >> stephen: but the real shocker, folks, was where he is wasting our blood and treasure next. >> america, it is time to focus on nation building here at home. >> stephen: what? (laughter) >> stephen: we tried nation building in afghanistan. it took us ten years to get out. do we really want to get sucked into another quagmire? (laughter) >> stephen: i mean think of the challenges. if the country was crumbling infrastructure, it barely functioning democr

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swanson he is author of this book you see right here war is a lie i asked him if he could prove the white house wrong because he's willing to believe that this war is illegal here's his response. white house doesn't make the arguments that many of its supporters make the argument it made in its report to congress yesterday was that the war powers act does not apply much less the constitution because this is neither a war nor hostilities this is something else this is a military operation that doesn't rise to the level of hostilities which is absolutely absurd the war powers act was written in one nine hundred seventy three very intentionally and clearly to encompass all military engagements seem clearly imminent threats of us still of these and anything i'm only two possibilities. and so there was a program yesterday when congressman dennis senator made it was this morning congressman dennis kucinich was to be a former lawyer from the reagan white house he was defending obama and he asked this guy twice never got an answer if there were two thousand missions over the united states by a fo

dan lothian is at the white house with details. oining us is laura donahue, acting director of georgetown university national security and law and on the phone joining us legal analyst jeffrey toobin. dan what does the white house defense boil down to here? >> reporter: one word and that is hostile it is. the white house argument is that action by u.s. troops in libya is not part of any sustained fighting. there's not exchange of any gunfire with hostile forces. there are no troops on the ground. there are no casualties and no chance of this really escalating into anything broader than that. and also the argument that u.s. is really in a supporting role here as part of the overall nato mission. so the bottom line for the white house, they believe, is that since u.s. troops do not have boots on the ground, therefore they are on pretty solid legal ground. >> then there's this bipartisan suit filed today for the courts to basically take the administration to court. there's some direct claims made in that suit that are refuted tonight b

of course, the white house is pushing that for wealthy americans. spending cuts and there is not, of course, overarching agreement on that ahead of that august deadline that the treasury department has set -- or said exists for increasing the debt limit. >> brianna keilar, you're right, we'll be talking about this for a long time. all this talk about the debt ceiling, what does it mean? kind of makes your head spin, doesn't it? the debt creeling is sort of like the credit limit for your credit card only much, much bigger. you've heard it's about $14.3 trillion. this is money the government has already spent. stacked on top of each other, 14 trillion dollar bills would reach from the earth to the moon, more than four times. your share of this pile of debt, just under $47,000. we hit the debt ceiling on may 16th. so the treasury secretary is now juggling bills to keep the country from defaulting until august 2nd. secretary geithner says not raising the debt limit by then would be, quote, catastrophic. we'll see what happens in congress and that meeting

up the white men's beings. for doing what why is christians have to do which is, you know, fixing brown people's country even if you have to kill a couple million of them, and then they'll be thankful for it. so this incredible stuff is going on, and i started thinking about who are the people who lived it? you know, not necessarily the big people who got to make the decisions, but the people who get caught up in the flood of events. and to go the places i wanted to go, i just realized, oh, i need this character who could go there and this character who could go there. and then as far as the voices are concerned, it's, some of it is the mindset of the character and how they see the world and what their version of it is. so even this judge who you hear here who is arguing for a grandfather clause actually has a strong sense of honor and honesty. despite his racism and his being stuck in the past, somebody who fought in the con confederate s, the civil around -- civil war and has his view. when you get into the d

it's really the first we've heard from the white house today. vice president said that he agrees there has to be, you know, top level engagement now. but that the republicans are going to have to agree to some balanced approach that includes taxes. they're not talking about raising tax rates. they're talking about taking way some tax breaks that they feel like will bring in more revenue and help in these deficit talks. they don't think that because the republicans are talking about might disproportionately hurt the low income and middle class and they want the changes to be spread around. >> lehrer: lori montgomerie, how would you characterize the areas of sticking point disagree here? >> well, i think there are a couple of areas. one obviously is taxes. the republicans have since the beginning said that they are not willing to do any kind of tax increases whether it's, you know, raising taxes on the wealthy which is-- or whether it's closing some of these corporate loopholes like you know preferential treatment of hedge fund managers or you know

secondly, what i said a few weeks ago after we were all down to the white house. id that if we're going to meet the president's side, to come to an agreement by the end of the month, he needs to engage. the president is going to have to engage. host: yesterday, speaker of the house, john boehner. harry reid in "the washington post" article. joining us on the phone is lori montgomery. she has the front-page story in "the washington post" and is also available online. what is next? what happens? guest: i do not think we know yet. the white house put out a statement from joe biden that they stand ready to meet again. i think the white house is suggesting it is the next move for republicans. john boehner clearly said it is the next move for the white house. they need to talk and figure out where they are headed. there is clearly an open channel of communication between the white house and capitol hill republicans already. john boehner met privately with obama on wednesday evening. obama is talking to mcconnell. we are calling this an impasse, but i do not think anybody

the document that the white house uses to defend itself and claim that it's a humanitarian effort on its part is so weasel worded, it becomes almost north only laughable but contemptible! exit question -- the polls tell us america's role in the libyan intervention is a political minus for obama. what kind of minus is it? is it major, is it moods rat, is it minor or convertible into a plus, if and when gaddafi goes? pat? >> it's a moderate minus right now, john. but i do agree, when and if gaddafi goes down, they will say, i got the guy that did pan am 103. >> would have been a much bigger minus if obama stood by while gaddafi murdered his own citizens and in benghazi. >> we'll the remaining members in a minute. >> i hope to be able to continue >> question, democratic congressman anthony weiner, by the way, representing the ninth congressional district of new york, resigned this week. did minority leader nancy pelosi and president obama pull out the rug from underneath him and force him to resign? i ask you. >> yes, as we discussed a couple weeks ago this is not a resigning kinds of gu