i had a wonderful time in the white house. and i really did. and my topic today is the executive congressional relations, but i want to sort of describe white house, all of that goes into devising and implementing legislative program and strategy on behalf of the white house, but also maybe suggest to you that you also need to appreciate those dynamics that goes on, that go on between the white house and the hill. as you build it into your own, you know, legislative strategy, plotting strategy on the outside, you can't operate in a vacuum. your lobbying effort, you know, just going into a black box. you have to appreciate who's getting along with you on the hill, who's cooperating with you, who's up, who's down, in order to build your strategy from the outside. so that's in addition to just being, you know, good observant of sort of, you know, current events and good citizens. i mean, the profession that you are sort of seeking to get into, as i understand it, you also need to know what's going on up on the hill. and i've come to the conclusion

we know how angry the white house is. >> very. >> we were just talking about the white house put out a statement calling senator demint's threat which apparently is a very real threat to read the entire treaty on the floor. this is a new low says the white house putting political stunts ahead of our national security. the washington game playing the american people are sick of. part of the white house's lashing of senator demint. do they think they can get by this? will it stay on the floor if they continue to read it? >> i think they are hoping demint is overplaying his hands. by forcing the clerk to read the bill, i think they are hoping somehow other members of the republican caucus go to mitch mcconnell and kyl and say this is getting ridiculous. this is going to hurt all of us. this may be good for jim demint's politics but is it good for senate republican politics? that is something the white house is hoping could happen if demint goes through with this. look, let's see what happens. as kelly pointed out, you hear these threats and they can get started and suddenly someone backs

he will stay at the white house. at the end of the day, i don't know how much of a huge reshuffling we're going to see. chris: remember the song "this could be the start of something big" could they be bringing big shots in, heavyweights into the white house? is it possible? >> it's possible. look at the pentagon and defendant department with gates going as well. chris: heavyweights going in? >> particularly in the economics, this they are going to create a bipartisan team, they need big powers. >> they are bringing in an economic spokesman who can talk to wall street. he is going into the devil's den. chris: pro business? >> he is going to try. >> they may bring somebody big in, but robert gibbs and the people who have been with him in the gipping are going to remain in t ihenn chris: welcome back, michael, tell me something i don't know. >> how many executes have approved a constitution convention for a balanced budget. 31. 11 new states, this sounds like black helicopter stuff, 11 new state legislatures are in repu

there's the carter white house and then there is dealing with the hostage crisis white house. in retrospect is their something you would have done different for about the course? i know you said on extra helicopter on a mission, but can you -- with a drawl and look at the polls situation would you wish you would have done something differently? >> guest: not really. if i had known completely what was happening and what had been in the future i might have done something different but i don't think so under the circumstances because that was the last holdout on my top management team in letting the sharnak come to new york infrequent of his terminal cancer. and henry kissinger and dr. brzezinski and all of my advisers let him come. it's a humanitarian thing to do, and so i contacted the president and the prime minister of iran, and i told them i was contemplating in having the shawl, free treatment, and i wanted an assurance from them that they would protect the americans over there and at that time there were about 8,000 americans in iran working in different forces including 66

times we had at the white house. we flew over the canal this afternoon, as you know of william douglas, one of our great justices of the supreme > court. that is where used to run in the afternoon. i was running about 40 miles a week, which is a lot in washington, around here and at camp david on the weekends so i just think about the good times we had and when i fly back to congress and half thankful i am now that i had the super bipartisan support that existed back in the 70's, which doesn't exist anymore, so i think about the similarities and often the difference is. >> host: is there a republican in congress that the senate that you personally learn to enjoy working with the you became friends with? >> guest: senator baker from tennessee was in charge of the republican side and he was a great personal friend of mine and i got wonderful cooperation from the republican side and of course michael in the house was a minority leader in the house of representatives and michael was also a great supporter of mine, so they

and today, at the white house, his spokesman, when the attorney general's latest report on smoking was released, a reporter asked the press secretary at the white house if the president has, in fact, been able to fully quit. >> i've not seen or witnessed evidence of any smoking in probably nine months. this is not something that he's proud of. he knows that it's not good for him. >> he has not seen or witnessed any evidence of smoking for nine months. the job of a spokesman, we could point out, a crafty and creative answer about the smoking habits of his boss, the president. nancy, what else did we learn on this front today? >> the first report came out in '64, but today, our surgeon general came out and said there is no such thing as any exposure to cigarettes. in fact, just one puff can cause immediate damage to your body. this report focused on how smoking causes diseases and one important statistic, if everybody in this country stopped smoking right now, one out of three cancers would disappear and brian, i think the number is even higher. if you look at heart disease and stroke. t

we are now awaiting reaction from the white house. and the man who brought forward that lawsuit to begin with, virginia attorney general ken cuccinelli. we are joined by lou dobbs who has been a critic of a law. it has been dealt a major set back. >> reporter: absolutely. i love the fact that the judge focused on congress trying to change the language. writing the law as a penalty and then the language became tax. megyn: that became a big deal. i want our viewers to know. there was another one but the basic two grounds that the virginia attorney general challenged this law on were number one they said the commerce clause because that's what congress said they had the power to enact. they said anything that a touches commerce congress can regulate. this judge said no way you've gone too far. you talk about people sitting in their house not doing anything. >> reporter: and the general welfare clause trying to extend this is a broad interpretation. megyn: the feds second argument was it's a tax in the same way we can tax your income, we c

there's the carter white house and in dealing with the hostage crisis white house. the retrospect is their something you would have done different throughout the course? i know you have set an extra helicopter on the mission but can you withdraw back and look at that whole situation and wish you would have done something differently? >> guest: not really. not knowing if i had known completely what was happening what happened in the future i might have done something different but i don't think so under the circumstances because i was the last on my top management team and letting the shah come to new york for treatment of his terminal cancer. and henry kissinger and dr. brzezinski and vance and all of my advisers were saying let him come, it's a humanitarian thing to do, and so i contacted the president and the prime minister of iran, and i told them i was contemplating having the shah come to have treatment and i wanted assurance from them that they would protect americans who were over there. at that time there were about 8,000 americans in iran working in differe

the president's november 3rd post-election. cost democrats 63 house seats and 6 in the senate. the whiteve any good answers to explain the shellacking, but they went out there anyway. nuthing to say. >> except for coining a new phrase, shellacking. >> finally, the president's gulf coast backtracking for support for a mosque at ground zero. this was really an overnight reversal. let's charge a story that died down at that point. the president spoke out about it on friday night. turning it into a national story and this dogged the white house for weeks. >> as a citizen and as president, i believe that muslims have the right to practice their religion as every one else in this con. and that includes, that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower manhattan. >> i was not commenting and i will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. i was commenting very specifically on the right that people had that dates back to our founding. >> okay. the chavannah goes to, let's see here. didn't seal it very well. >> it'

house and the democrats in the house? or whether the house plans to change this bill. what is it? >> well, the white house, the president themself said he was making calls today to try to persuade house democrats. what's likely to happen is the house will take up what they're working towards happen, but an amendment on the estate tax provision. they believe it's just too generalous to wealthy americans. what they would do is try to put up a measure to make it less generous. the question is whether or not they could actually pass it. i'm told by house democrats, those who may oppose it, it would probably just quickly go to the senate, they would reject it and it would go back to the house. people on both sides of the capital, democrats seem a lot more resigned to the fact that this tax cut package is likely to go through before the end of the year, before everybody's taxes are slighted to go up. >> all right. let's move on. no bill clinton side kick, but the president came into the white house briefing room solo. the mount angered liberals last week by labelling their criticism sanctimonious. >> so y

this is about the bush white house. you can't talk about changing the way we do business in washington and bringing about a spirit of bipartisan cooperation and ram through a tax bill in the house. that's the old way of doing things in washington. that's why we're not getting things done. that was march of 2001. i imagine quite a few senators of either party could utter a vote like that and claim they had the high ground on this dealing with this white house. >> well, you got the process and you got the final product. i think we can always complain about the process. probably the house today i think you would agree is probably not very happy about having to accept what the senate is going to pass some time today. so the process is not always very pretty. but you have to look at the final product. what's the end result? is it something good for the country? is it something that the majority of people in the center can support? i think the answer is yes. is it perfect? far from it. but you have to take the good with the ba

no time like the present. >> there were many in the house that were looking for a slightly different presentation of the vote in the house and hoping the whitese would get behind it. but that is monday morning quarterbacking. i understand some folks at the white house are saying, you should have done it earlier. there were proposals that some of us gave to the white house that we believe could have broken the logjam earlier, but again, history will tell that story. >> congressman chris van hollen, good to have you here. >> good to be with you. >> thanks for coming in this morning. >>> can coming up next, get excited. you'll probably want to stick around, congressman. it's the first ever annual chuvannah awards. we're crowning winners from the best viral ads to the worst candidates. >> and with appearances by the spoilers. >> we'll also have the big spenders. >> and that guy from south carolina, whatever his name was, you remember him. >> and from the possessed farm animal category, the demon sheep. >>> but first, our washington speak, the estate tax. this is a tax on the transfer of property after your death. in the president's deal with rep

i don't think the white house expects a dream act or don't ask, don't tell to be brought back in the te nor to pass if they are. the white house feeling is they've got this tax deal, they need that not to blow up. if they can keep that not blowing up, they can say they extended the rates, then when they come back, straight messaging. a republican congress. they can go to war. they don't have to extend the tax rates to keep the economy afloat. they have a lot more freedom in that scenario than to come back and immediately get into gauc negotiations with boehner by the time we're signing those tax forms. >> does the white house not understand how dispirited some of their supporters are over this tax bill and that another way to bring them some form of christmas cheer is to do something real and difficult on don't ask, don't tell or on the dream act to really make an effort at that? >> one of the things that the white house is fatal about is the senate. if the votes aren't there, you say the votes aren't there. a fair critique here is they don't travel to people's districts. they don't w

to stuff it. >> the gop is three weeks from taking control of the house and the white house is doing a charm offensive, what is this? >> this is a surprise. after election day, the white house started reaching out to republicans who are committee chairs. they are getting private meetings at the white house and ben bernanke came to the office of one republican chairman, the agriculture secretary set up a monthly lunch. the president is taking calls for you might call this getting a relationship with them before they start working together. >> both the president and first lady will be at a local elementary school which is unusual. they are signing a bill on children's nutrition. >> that is unusual for them to be together. they will be at the harriet tubman elementary school. they will save the child did obeisance -- childhood obesity is a national problem. >> mike allen, good to see you on this monday morning. >> time for traffic and weather every 10 minutes. we will check in with chief meteorologist doug hill -- we will not. >>> he has a morning off. a will be back at some point comin

so, david kerley is at the white house tonight where details are emerging as we speak. david, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, david. the president is preparing to break one of his biggest campaign promises. he is poised to extend tax cuts to the richest americans in exchange for helping millions who are jobless. >> senate be in order. >> reporter: tonight, it appears republicans will get all the tax cuts extended. >> i think it's pretty clear now taxes are not going up on anybody in the middle of this recession. we're discussing how long we should maintain current tax rates. >> reporter: for democrats, making this deal, giving in on taxes to get unemployment benefits extended, is a tough pill to swallow. >> we're moving in that direction. and we're only moving there against my judgment and my own particular view of things. >> reporter: democrats tried to extend the tax cuts only to the middle class. >> they're demanding that the wealthiest americans get a tax cut that is 1,000 times the size of the average american. >> reporter: but the effort -- >> mr. cochran,

. >> suarez: the book is "white house diary." ease thank the 39th president of the united states, jimmy carter. ( applause ) >> ifill: that conversation took place last week in >> ifill: that conversation took place last week in front of live audience at the lincoln theater in washington, d.c. >> brown: finally tonight, the sound and the spirit of gospel in an unlikely arena. it was a mix of spiritual and spectacle. ♪ church revival and american idol style competitions. >> y'all did a phenomenal job. >> brown: 14 flyers from churches around the nation recently competed in the "how sweet the sound finale" a celebration of gospel music started by verizon and held in the verizon center in washington d.c., a venue usually hosting major sports and pop music events but on this night filled with close to 11,000 gospel fans. ♪ outside the main hall, a youth choir displayed its talents as people arrived. and concert goers, young and old, took part in some gospel karaoke. ♪ on stage a wide array of modern gospel styles from the traditionall

by 1960, with eisenhower in the white house, baby-boomers had surged the population to 179 million. when reagan was elected in 1980, there were 226 million of us. 281 million by 2000. and 308 million today, bigger than ever but the slowest growth rate in 60 years. tom costello, nbc news, washington. >>> to something a bit more basic. the weather, especially we go to southern california now, day six of the torrential rain that's turned huge areas into a flooded dangerous mess. our own miguel almaguer is in l.a. for us. good evening. >> reporter: brian, good evening. river banks across california are on the rise and here in los angeles the l.a. river which snakes through so much of the city is also on the rise. earlier today, water threatened lives. now it's threatening homeless. raging waters and flash flooding in orange county four hikers were rescued after being trapped and in orange county, four hikers were rescued after they were trapped by a swollen creek overnight. >> they're cold, they're wet. >> near san diego, three men were pulled to safety from rising rapids below a bridge

to white house is. the carter white house and they were dealing with the hostage crisis.in retrospect is this something you would have done differently in europe that course? and their he said an extra helicopter. can you withdraw back and look at that whole situation is and wish you would have done something differently? >> guest: not really. if i had known completely what was happening and might have done something different, but i don't think so under the circumstances. i was the last holdout on the top management team in letting this come to new york for the treatment of the star of cancer. and henry kissinger and all my advisers were saying let him come. is the humanitarian thing to do. so i contacted the president and the prime minister of a wrong. i told them that i was contemplating letting him come to new york for treatment. i wanted assurance from them that they would protect americans. at that time there were about 8,000 americans in iran on working in different forces including 66 members of the embassy staff. they sent me word that they would guarantee that n

mike emanuel with reaction from the white house. karl, had today's vote showed support. are house democrats going to try to make changes? >> well, listen supporters of the package got more than 85 votes that is a strong bipartisan statement and build moment nument house. house democrats insisted that there is a change. they want to see the estate tax portion altered. the current proposal calls for a 35 percent tax on inheritance over five million dollars. democrats say it is not big enough. they want it increased to a 45 percent tax on inherances was 3.25 million and that change runs afoul of the president's promise of republicans that the overall frame work would not change and the huge vote in the senate will make that snow ball run down bigger and making it difficult. >> does it now appear after the questions that lawmakers may be back home by christmas eve in >> they have other business to deal with. if they get the tax cut done this week they have to resolve keeping the government operating on saturday. a stop gap measure to fund the budget expires friday night. the

in the white house. i want to lay out a new initiative and surprise the country. therefore the congress and did. >> aids can be prevented. anti-retro viral drugs can extend life for many years. tonight i propose the emergency plan for aids relief. work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of africa. >> bret: with that, the president's emergency plan for aids relief was born. after it was pushed through congress with bipartisan support, the president signed it in to law in 2003. after months of set-up, ironing out the kinks of dealing with various countries and another oval office visit by bono, the aids drugs were finally being delivered to africa. >> they are the best advertisements from america there will ever be. even people who are snide and senator i can about it, about the united states of america, have to admit that millions of lives have been saved by american taxpayers. being effective was the thing we had to prove, that there could be measurable results, that if american taxpayers were going to fork out for the historic ai

so what the white house sort of

so is quite eventful and kept us quite busy at the white house. i do take what the caller said fiercely. he made some interesting points about that in this boat. one point he makes is that he didn't want to dump this on obama. he wanted to get this sorted out before hand. and i thought that was an important point. and the spending money has damaged his legacy with conservatives, but he thought it was important to pass on a somewhat able citizen to his successor and i thought that was important. >> host: julian zelizer >> guest: yeah, i think this is very inventive and transform presidency. one of the things we look for and how do we evaluate the president is how much did we make public policy? homage to their decisions can last over time? nle is what we're starting to see, while president obama is in the white house, is in terms of tax policy, counterterrorism, t.a.r.p. and financial policy. worst of regime change. a lot of the agenda set by president bush is very much in place, even when democrats controlled both branches of government. congress a

as the tax cut bill makes its way over to the house for a vote, there is some encouraging news for the whiten the latest "wall street journal" poll. when asked if they support the tax agreement that the white house negotiated with republicans, 59% said they approve. but that doesn't mean that many americans still are not wondering how this bill will or won't help them. i want to bring in dylan rhadigan who is tikicking off h "steel on wheels" tour. dylan joins us now. explain how you answer that question that many are asking, the ceos today, that we're hearing this news coming out of d.c. where the jobs? where can we create the jobs? >> and i guess the simplest way to answer the question where are the jobs is to ask yourself what are the things that create jobs? investment in this country creates jobs. strong educational system creates jobs. tax incentives that incentivize companies large and small to push their money into our country and to solve our country's problems, whether it's energy, health care, down those lists, those are the sorts of things that create jobs. in real life, most new

the height of the gulf oil spill he made these comments about a twenty billion dollars fund of the white house forced b.p. to set up to pay for the damages take a listen but i'm ashamed of what happened in the white house yesterday i think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what i would characterize as a shakedown. in this case a twenty billion dollars shakedown. now that comment caused a firestorm that almost caused bar in his position on the house energy and commerce committee and other republicans have retaken the house barton has once again set his sights on the chairmanship of that committee and in a slide presentation he e-mailed to colleagues he laid out his plans on the obama white house very simple declare war take a look at the presentation it shows photos of generals dwight eisenhower omar bradley and george patton barton says that speaker john boehner is our dwight eisenhower in the battle against the obama administration what jordi leader eric cantor is our omar bradley and i want to be george patton put anything in my scope and

the obama white house. >> reporter: i'm well, thank you. >> i don't want to start by going back but i've got ask about president clinton behind the podium. is this a sign of a smart political move on the part of president obama or that he needs to call in reinforcements, a sign of weakness? >> reporter: you know, i don't think they thought about it a lot. this was improvised. they didn't have much warning or give much warning to the press or in fact their own staff in doing this. and it takes a certain amount of self-assuredness on the president's part to hand over the podium to someone he has had this, well, a tense relationship in the past. but, look, his problem has been with the base and president clen clinton has a popularity with the base that the president, the white house needs right now. all in all, people look back on this and after the chuckles and the surprise, turns out president clinton made a forceful case there. >> do you have any word, anything else that president clinton is doing? is he wo

up to two terms, he decided to leave the white house. one is ben said, what we call you and he said not mr. president. i am not mr. president. you can call me colonel. i got the title fighting in the spanish-american war. i got it in battle. it is an honorable title. you can call me colonel. tavis: i love how you phrase the statement that he decided to leave the white house and he did. there were those who thought and hoped he would run for a third term and he believed he would have won. which leads me to ask, whether or not -- he did not want to be president. did he enjoyed being president? >> he loved it. he did run for a third term. what you are referring to is when he was president, in 19008 -- 1908, he was offered a third term and he pushed it away at the moment when he wanted it. the sense of finite power. if he felheld onto power too lo, it would begin to correct him, he fell. having spent four years away from the white house, he wanted to get back in. >> he did run for a third term and a man consecutively. let's talk about the poi

ingredients for life. >>> visitors to the white house will likely get a chance to see the christmas treeough. the white house put out this time of its video to show what it took to get the tree decorated. it took workers about 4.5 days to decorate the douglas fir. look at that. always a pretty sight. >> you better keep watered pretty >> that is absolutely right. let's talk about the weather. >> very slim chances for snow on sunday. it does not look like that nor'easter is going to come close to affect us. tuesday and wednesday, maybe a little bit of a dusting here and there. look at those temperatures. they do not go up and down for the extent of the forecast. just staying

the senate later this week, it goes to the house. democrat there say they'll' attempt to change the measure. the white house still believes through all of this the deal will pass by the end of the year. preeti arla is in washington with the latest. good morning to you. >> good morning, terrell. a week after the president announced his compromise with republicans, democrats are still speaking out against it. house democrats appear to want some changes but still one of the president's top advisers expect it will win passage before the end of the month. the white house's tax cut proposal is expected to pass its first key test. >> i can say that we have good cross-section of the senate democratic caucus from left to right who are prepared to accept this. >> reporter: this afternoon the senate is set to approve the maesh sure in a procedural vote before expected passage later this week. but the plan faces a much tougher battle in the house. democrats insist they won't even bring it to the floor until cuts for the wealthy are scaled back. >> we're going to change this and we're going to hopefully the presid

because they did have that meeting at the white house with house democrats on monday where the president was told very specifically, the white house did not acknowledge that a deal had been cut at that point and democrats are sitting there going, look, if you go this far on the estate tax, that's really unacceptable to us so please don't do that and then they're barely back at the capitol when they learn a deal has been cut. so they go into this meeting the next night and they really feel like, you know, joe biden, the former senator, has just cut a deal that his buddies in the senate were in on, and that republicans clearly knew what was going on, but we, over here in the house democratic caucus are left out in the cold. gwen: isn't joe biden supposed to be the secret weapon? >> in this case, you have to wonder, the deal is, the administration did get more for this than they ever would have expected and i think would get if they were to wait till january when the republicans have more members. what i find interesting about this whole -- all these complaints about process is the process

chip reid is at the white house tonight. and, chip, it was a very unusual scene there today, to say the least. >> reporter: well, katie, we had been told by white house officials that absolutely this was a private meeting. we wouldn't even be getting a piece of paper describing how the meeting went. but to the surprise of everyone in the press corps, on a moment's notice, everything changed. >> ...a slow news day. i'll bring the other guy in. >> reporter: after more than an hour in the oval office, the current and former presidents made a surprise visit to the briefing room. >> given the fact that he presided over as good an economy as we've seen in our lifetimes, that it might be useful for him to share some of his thoughts. >> reporter: the president spoke for barely a minute, doing little more than introducing the former president, then turned it over to mr. clinton to defend the president's tax deal with republicans. >> the agreement taken as a whole is, i believe, the best bipartisan agreement we can reach to help the la

. >> at last report, bill clinton was not still talking at the white house podium. >>> and chances are john boehner does not take the gavel in three weeks, but the white house is working behind the scenes to build a relationship with the republicans. >>> and speaking of republicans, will he stay or go? decision day for republican national committee chairman michael steele. >>> plus, the case for ratifying s.e.a.r.t. and we will speak with sam nunn, the former author of the initiative. >> if i come to you and say, mr. mayor, i want to take a hard look at this and this is not a vanity play and we could win this thing, would you change your mind? >> no way no how. >> no way, no how. mayor michael bloomberg says he is not running, but he is offering a new political vision, politics without labels. this hour we will talk with another key player behind the effort. los angeles mayor antonio villaraigosa. >>> and michelle ree is not done fighting. we will have more on that union fight as msnbc continues. i'm andrea mitchell live in washington, and we begin with news that ta virginia judge has

newt at noon, a large group of anti-war activists are protesting at the white house. veterans for peace leading a civil resistance by chaining themselves to the fence outside of the white house. they are demanding an end to the u.s. wars and occupations in afghanistan, pakistan, iraq, and yemen. >>> mayor elected vincent gray will make announcements about the new public safety leader. he will reappoint the police chief. the incoming mayor will likely name ellerby as his fire chief. he is currently fire chief in sarasota, florida. >>> and best editors say a five- alarm fire that destroyed buildings in baltimore possible the entertainment district was no accident but they are not saying yet if it is arson. it damaged several other buildings. investigators believe the fire was set by a person but they are not sure of the person's intent. >>> at a metro said the committee meeting a safety officer it gave a report about another escalator incident. metro's elevators have come under scrutiny after a number of problems. we learned in november and metro employees removed a prot

you were at the white house, take it from there. what happened? >> well, i wasn't at the white house. this was about 2:15 in the morning after the assassination, and we were all kennedy detail agents that were standing watch. and president kennedy, if he came outside, he would notify the security command post, and we'd get the word around that the president was out moving. the vice president before he became president usually only had about two agents with him. one would be inside and maybe the other one out. so he had no idea of the protocol. i hadn't slept in this about 40 hours -- in about 40 hours, and i was hallucinating. when i relieved the 12 shift agent, he was still emotionally rocked from dallas, so he pointed at the machine gun we had on post. so not knowing whether it was a conspiracy or not, we were pretty much on edge. when i heard a noise coming from around the house and all of a sudden i had my, the weapon to my shoulder, my finger on the trigger. and be i don't know if you notice it, but you can recognize lyndon johnson's profile.

a reality check on the long awaited war report, next. >>> first, let's see the white house soup of thee white house mess, serving chicken chili. >> i have to say, i really wish it were a chicken noodle day. everybody could use a little chicken nude e noodle soup. >> getting sick or under the weather. >> it's true. >>> you're watching "the daily rundown" on msnbc. it's calcium citrate, so it can be absorbed with or without food. also available in small, easy-to-swallow petites. citracal. but i wasn't winning any ribbons managing my diabetes. it was so complicated. there was a lot of information out there. but it was frustrating trying to get the answers i needed. then my company partnered with unitedhealthcare. they provided onsite screenings, healthy cooking tips. that's a recipe i'm keeping. ( announcer ) turning complex data into easy tools. we're 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. and while it can never be fully answered, it helps to have a financial partner like northern trust. by gaining a keen understanding of your fina

from the white house. press secretary robert gibbs says it will affirm the president's timetable to begin withdrawing some u.s. forces next july. >> i doubt there will be, in all honesty, a lot of surprise at what the review lays out. there has been some important progress in halting the momentum of the taliban in afghanistan. we have seen through counter terrorism success at degrading senior al qaeda leaders. and we've seen greater cooperation over the course of the past 18 months with the pakistani government. >> ahead of tomorrow's release the president met for nearly two hours in the situation room yesterday with secretary of state hillary clinton, defense secretary robert gates, and other top military and national security advisers it to go over this review. >>> the obama administration reportedly concludes also that north korea's new plant to enrich nuclear fuel uses technology that is, quote, significantly more advanced than that possessed by iran. that's according to intelligence officials. accordi

the white house much leverage. what i expect to happen is that all the bush tax rates will be extended probably for one or two years and then you'll have that tax reform discussion. >> and then we'll all have a merry christmas. >> before we go to tonight we return to the world of what was he thinking? 80-year-old new york democrat charles rangel wants the chairman of the tax writing ways an means committee admitted that he made mistakes filing his taxes. so what was he thinking? >> there's absolutely no excuse for my emission for my responsibility to obey those rules, but i still believe that this body has to be guided by fairness. >> in the end, rangel said he did not emmit himselfs of his actions and he should have been reprimanded not censured. was the punishment fair or snot drop us an e-mail at "washington week" and we'll post your responses online. we have to leave you early to give you an opportunity to support your local pbs station. but we continue, check it out on pbs.org and keep it up with daily develop

she joins ne from the white house. this extension for the middle class considered a true victory for the obama administration? >> well, that's how they look at it. it's because they're thinking about what would have happened if there had been no compromise, and that is that taxes would have gone up for everybody, including the middle class, which would have been a violation of another campaign ç promise. this wasn't just a side issue or something he talked about occasionally as president. this is something they talked about time and time again. that they would not let the tax cuts for the wealthiest continue, and yet, that's about to happen. he's about to put pen to paper in a ceremony here at the white house with within the hour doing just that. that's why it's been so hard for some of his ver fant supporters on the left to take this. but the president is a practical person and knew if they didn't do some kind of deal, the taxes would have gone up in january for everybody. so they do look at this deal as something th

the white house strikes this deal. the paper, of course, bad news out of the afghanistan, bigger deficits, bigger debts. i've just -- just stepping back, this white house always seems to have incoming -- it's constant -- >> a good way of putting it. >> even after striking what they consider to be a great, great bill, a great deal, they get a deal with afghanistan and deficit. it's not getting easier, is it? >> reporter: no. not to give away the store, we've got the nbc/"wall street journal" poll coming out tonight. we'll delve into the numbers a lot tomorrow. i'll say this, you do get the sense in reading a lot of these polls, the public gets that there's a ton of incoming, and they get that. but they still don't have a handle on how the president is going to deal with that stuff. they expect to deal with a lot of the incoming but not giving clues about which way to deal with it. they don't like any way he deals wit. if he tries to go left, he gets hit in public opinion. if he goes right, he gets hit sometimes in publi

that might be an interesting story. >> you know, i think they probably eat pretty well over at the white houses done a lot of promotion of farm-to-school programs and the use of community gardens and of course has planted a garden at the white house that the chefs are using for some of the food over there. and one of the things that this bill does is it provides about $40 million over ten years to encourage schools to set up you these farm-to-school programs and to set up community gardens and to try to get more local produce and healthier produce into the kids' meals. >> so as soon as the president signs this into law, how soon could we see these changes take effect, peter? >> well, i mean, some of the effects are going to take effect -- some of the changes will take effect very quickly. others will take a little bit of time. the legislation directs the usda to set new nutrition standards for schools. those standards will be set based on the recommendations from the institutes of medicine. that process will take a little time. but the reimbursement rates for schools will go up element immedia

something that they promised their base they would do and may be trying to stiffen the spine of the white houseng has been, is that the white house would cave on this, and president obama has now made his line in the sand, opposition to permanent extensions, of the tax cuts, meaning he'd agree to extending all of the tax cuts, for some temporary period of time, maybe 2, 3 years and you may see the house democrats, basically, trying to say to the white house, look, let's hang tough here. bill: it was almost check, maybe check-mate yesterday when the 42 republicans signed the letter on the senate side. an interesting move and one that portends, well, a lot of interesting by lines over the next coming weeks in washington, byron, thank you, to our viewers at home, we're asking, should unemployment benefits be extended further, so far 1200 have responded and now, 20% say yes, and, people have to feed their family, a whopping 79% say no, we can't afford it and we need incentives to look for work, if you want to vote, lines are open now, foxnews.com/"america's newsroom." on-line now. martha: here's an

the house nancy pelosi urging quick passage of the deal. terrell? >> preeti arla in washington for us this morning. preeti, thanks. tomorrow the white house releases a year-long review of the afghan war. the classified report concludes progress has been made but there are lingering troubles including militants' ability to hide in pakistan. there are about 100,000 american troops in afghanistan. the president is expected to say enough gains have been made to begin withdrawing troops in july. >>> this morning a suicide bomber killed dozens of worshippers in iran. the bomber struck outside a shiite mosque in southeast iran near the border with pakistan. the iranian news agency says dozens more were injured. >>> in medical news this morning a man infected with aids appears to have been cured by a blood transplant. the patient was an american living in germany. he had a blood stem cell transplant in 2007 to treat leukemia. apparently a blood donor had a gene mutation with a natural resistance to hiv. three years later he shows no sign of cancer or hiv infection. doctors say it is far too risky to become standard therapy. >>> bail set for

-- the president is making phone calls to your colleagues in the senate -- in the house, saying that, hey, this is my presidency. the white house is saying that the president hasn't said anything remotely like that and has never spoken with mr. defazio about the issue. tommy vietor said that. where are we on this? did the president make those calls. >> oh, he's making calls. i don't know exactly what he has said because he hasn't called me. i was in a meeting with a group of members when one member said that. we didn't quiz him, did he exactly say that! but i can tell you from what vice president biden said last week. they were talking about catastrophes if we don't vote for this. catastrophe for the democrats, catastrophe for the president if we don't pass this. the president may have said more on the lines of what vice president biden said it. the point is they've pulled out all of the stops on the mcconnell tax package here. the republicanses' priorities in a way that i've never seen before and never on anything that i care about or anything that you know would had been better for the people they represent and better f

the estate tax next year. now, many house democrats are furious with the president. yet, the white house believes there will be another support to push the deal through congress. >> i think we're going to get strong support on both sides of the aisle. i respect people who are unhappy. we share their view on the upper income tax cuts on the estate tax. that was a part of the deal that we had to accept in order to get all the good things that come along with that. that's the nature of compromise. >> and more compromise could come on that estate tax which i was mentioning. it's a big sticking point among democrats. right now, estates as large as five million can pass to heirs without being taxed plus another $5 million. what appears to be right now, steve, a lot of tough talk about how much they hate the president's deal with republicans, it appears the democrats might be ready to get the plan through even while kicking and screaming all the way in the senate, for example, the number two senate democrat of illinois says a good cross section of senators in his party are ready to accept

that is something that the white house does need to be concerned about. like in the senate, even more in the house, they are going to be relying on republican votes to help push this through, whatever the this is that they do in the house because of the discord among democrats, namely the fact that the wealthiest americans will continue to get tax cuts. >> we heard steny hoyer say today they will allow the vote to go forward on the house floor. do we have any idea when that will take place? >> we don't. it would not be surprising if it would be some time late in this -- late this week. but senate democratic leaders say they're not going to make a final decision until they see a final vote in the senate, which we do believe will probably happen as soon as tomorrow. i should tell you that the vote is still ongoing on the senate floor. they've been holding it open for a couple of hours now. it probably will close at the top of this hour. and it really is overwhelming. the president does have momentum from the senate to push the house. it is so far 80% of the