tom shannon and others met here yesterday with the president of honduras. you have seen oas take actions at set -- and set deadlines for the restoration of the president before actions taken in, and that is where we are. >> how far reaching our the pentagon's suspending military actions? >> we continue to monitor the situation and will respond accordingly as events transpire. as i said, we are watching closely what is going on. >> another meltdown, and tell for it. the legislature failed to agree on a budget plan, and they on the verge of having to take the extraordinary step of issuing i owe you's. how concerned is the administration about this development, and what would the federal government to do to help them out of it? >> the biggest step the federal government can do, we have done as it related to the recovery plan. $144 billion is the amount of money to recover late plan for states. -- is the recovery plan for states. how it affects each state budget -- as you mentioned, there are a number of states that find themselves at the end of the fiscal year

-- assistant secretary tom shannon, with the national security council and others. because we do want to work this out in the most appropriate manner, the question of their ambassador to us and our ambassador to them is one we need to resolve. i was very pleased that president zelaya and the foreign minister who was with him both commended us for the role that our ambassador is playing in honduras. not only in providing security for members of president zelaya's family, but in being one of the few people who can can talk to all sides at this time. we are obviously going to be guided by the appropriateness of whether to leave our ambassador there going forward. if president zelaya believes he's playing a useful role, so we do not want to abridge that if it could be value added to this mediation process. >> last question. >> madam secretary, thank you for taking questions. you can confirm reports that assistant secretary shannon met yesterday -- [inaudible] you can tell us about the nature of those conversations? [inaudible] >> well, i'm not going to comment on that b

>> no, i know that tom shannon and another man met with him whenever that was, early sunday morning.duras? we will go year and then come back. yes, go ahead. >> -- we will go here and then come back. >> for mr. zelaya, he is backing honduras. we were told that he went back to submit his resignation. now, there are those that are saying that he is coming back to the u.s. as an ambassador of the de facto government. do you have any information? >> no, i do not. although i would venture to say that somebody is representing a regime that we do not recognize would have a hard time getting credentialed. m r>> mr. flores, still be ambassador to the white house? >> i am not sure. whatever the reverse of the credentialing process is. a letter informing the white house and the state department that he was no longer acting as ambassador, i do not know. i do not know if that has been done or not. >> do you know right now who is behind this coup or whatever? >> i do not have any information about any kind of an external factors in honduras. but we're very focused on our common goal, which is the

tom joins us now. thanks for coming in today. >> thank you, shannon. >> shannon: a lot of press that she was involved with the white firefighters out new haven, connecticut. the city was worried that other minority candidates hadn't done as well. they won at the pree supreme c, overturning sotomayor's decision. will that be enough to give her a major bump in the road? >> hard to see this decision derailing the sotomayor nomination. clearly the supreme court said she was wrong and decided by a 5-4 margin. there were four justices that more or less agreed with what judge sotomayor said. it as worry some decision and troubling from a conservative perspective but the supreme court said she was wrong. i will imagine they will ask her about that in the confirmation hearing. >> shannon: we got word that 71 new documents had been sent in. i spent friday afternoon and evening going through those from the puerto rican legal defense and education fund. a lot of people think that is a conservative group and they were involved in a number of cases that involved discrimination issues and actually trying to help the min

tom and dan who have led the way. >> we have reports that president chavez called assistant secretary shannon over the weekend. is that correct? >> it is correct. let me just take this question, but is correct. -- it is correct. let me take a question and see if i can get to a better answer. >> i thought there was an additional call. >> no, i think it was just that one. >> can you double check? >> sure. i was wondering where you were going without american. -- with that american -- >> president obama today announced his choice for the next surgeon general of the united states. dr. regina benjamin makes a statement after being introduced by the president. from the rose garden earlier today, this is 15 minutes. >> good morning, everybody. but for any -- before i introduce america's next surgeon general, a lot like to say a word about our roof -- our efforts to reform the health care system that she will help to oversee. we are now closer to that goal of health care reform then we had ever been. over the last several weeks, key committees and house and senate have made important an unprecedented progress, plans t