Were there any winners . Our round table is here to break it down, Andrea Mitchell, david brooks, e. J. Dionne and Maria Bartiromo. Plus, the Iranian Nuclear threat. The republican senators are proposing even tougher sanctions to get iran to dismantle its nuclear facilities. In a sunday morning exclusive, ill ask Benjamin Netanyahu about his concerns over the irani charm defender. Im david gregory. All this ahead on meet the press, october 20. Good sunday morning. What a week it was in washington. Before we talk to jack lew and senator coburn, im here with our panel, david brooks, e. J. Dionne, Andrea Mitchell and Maria Bartiromo who celebrated her 20th year in washington. Congratulations. Thank you. First takes from everybody. What has changed after this dramatic week . I think the republicans may tire of doing faceplants, so i think the modern concessions that exist may have had a little manhood injection. They need to stand up to the tea party and be a little more modern party, or more realistic party. I think the era of the tea party is over. We wasted 12 to 15 billi 15 bil Political Action that was designed to win by intimidation. We have an abnormal government for the First Time Since the elections. The economy takes a hit. Probably about sixtenths of a percent. We go into the Fourth Quarter weaker than we wanted, and that is an important part of the year, holiday spending. Number two, Federal Reserve tapering probably off the table for 2013. Probably off the table for much of 2014. We take the brunt of this economic slowdown. I dont think the era is over. John boehner does not have a working majority without 30 or 40 of those hardliners who are not challenged in their own district. I do think, though, theyve learned a lesson that they have to work together. There were some grownups involved that are going to talk about a oneyear budget deal. But its not going to be with the president saying everything is on the table. He does not mean benefits are on the table, so there is not going to be a grand bargain. Joining me now, democratic senator from new york, chuck schumer, republican senator from oklahoma, tom coburn. Senators, welcome both. Good morning. Good morning. To andreas point, the crisis has been deverted, but why should anyone have faith that a deal is somehow reachable at this point . I think there are a few reasons. First of all, the republican parties in the house and senate are not a majority tea party. They are mainstream conservatives, very conservative but mainstream. Theyve seen their numbers drop dramatically because they followed the tea party. And they, i think, may decide not to go forward in this direction. And so i think that the i think well see a new type of negotiation where we come together. Now, one way, david, to avoid this from happening again is for us to implement the mcconnell rule, which says that Congress Must disapprove rather than approve increases in the debt ceiling. If we were to do that, the chances of going up to the brink again, the chances of this kind of debacle would decrease. Im going to introduce legislation to do just that, and it would really help. On that point, senator coburn, why would republicans agree to that if they just came through a negotiating term where they dont feel like they got very much . Why would they lose that feeling that, in fact, using the debt ceiling as some leverage is a worthwhile concept . If nothing else, they kept the sequestered cuts in place for now. Well, david, first of all, i think the debt ceiling is a misnomer. Weve never not increased it, and the first thing you do when youre addicted to something is to present the reality to yourself that youre addicted. And we didnt do anything except create a big mess in washington, and im not so inclined to think it was the tea party as much as it was outside Interest Groups and a few individuals within our party that took advantage of that situation. Look, the real problems are were continuing to spend money we dont have on things that we dont need, there is tremendous amounts of waste and fraud. We have to protect the promises made to the American People, and we can do that, but we can do that spending a whole lot less money than were doing today. Let me ask you about obama care, because that fight does not appear to be going away. Your colleague, senator ted cruz, has said that he would do anything in the future to stop the train wreck that is obama care. Do you believe the fight against obama care is over . Well, i think focusing on obama care takes you away from the larger picture, david. We have 128 trillion worth of unfunded liabilities and the total net worth of our country is 94 trillion and we have another 17 trillion worth of debt. What we ought to be doing is how do we secure the future . You know, i heard your panelists talk about the markets and the growth and the decrease in gdp. Our problem with growth, in spite of what jack lew is going to tell you, is there is no confidence in the country about the future. And until you have leadership that brings our nation together rather than advantages themselves by dividing this, were not going to solve these problems. And we have to be truthful about what the real problem is. Let me stick to obama care. Senator schumer, how disappointed are you with the rollout of obama care . Robert gibbs, who is the press secretary for president obama saying people should be fired for the rollout and the problems that have gone with it. How disappointed are you, and who should be accountable for it . First, i think the number one point about the rollout is that there is huge interest. 19 million individual visits to the website . Thats huge. 500,000 people, close to 500,000 people already filing applications, even with the computer glitches . The number one worry before we started was, are people going to be interested . Will people sign up . And the answer to that is overwhelmingly yes. As more people learn about it, more people are going to do that. I was at a wedding last night and i saw my cousin who has a small plumbing business. He was all worried about obama care. What am i going to do . I have a small number of employees on health care. I said, your costs will be cut in half. He was happy. Thats not the reality today. You can talk about what will happen. The reality has been very difficult for people. Well, because there are computer glitches. Look, every Major Tech Company has computer glitches. You read about apple, you read about all our major tech companies. Those will be solved. The administration is working to do it. Theyre putting in a tech surge, theyre putting in more people at the call centers. If you need health care, the fact you couldnt get on the computer right away isnt going to stop you two or three weeks away when theyre fixed from going on. I think the computer glitches are used by a good number of people who never wanted obama care in the first place as an excuse to just sort of bash it. Let me get back to politics. One of the striking things in our wall street journal poll was the following question would you vote to replace every member of congress . 60 said yes. We asked here on meet the press, on twitter for ideas on gridlock. Campaign finance reform. Senator coburn, is term limits maybe the most viable way to end this dysfunction in washington . I certainly think it would bring a different viewpoint to washington. My complaint is the vast majority of the members of the senate and the house have no experience outside of politics which doesnt mean theyre not great people and not dedicated servants, it means they lack judgment. And thats what i see most of the time. We just raised the debt limit for a period of time, and thats kind of like saying were going to raise the legal limit for blood alcohol, thinking were going to control drunk driving. Were drunk up there in terms of spending money. And we can keep commitments, but we cant keep commitments if we continue to spend money on things that we shouldnt be spending money on. Senator coburn, quick followup. How much of a reckoning for the Republican Party has been experienced this week because of going up against the debt default limit and the shutdown . Well, i think the fight on obama care, the Affordable Care act, took us off message. The large percentage of American Public knows that washington wastes money. They just dont have a clue of how bad it really is, and so we lost the message there of what really needs to happen in washington. Obama care is going to fail on its own right, and you just talked about the number of people that have signed up. The fact is the sick people are signing up, the healthy arent. And theyre not going to because the deductibles are so high and the cost is so high. The penalty is not enough to force them to do it. Thank you both this morning, i appreciate it. On friday i sat down with treasury secretary jack lew in his office right next door to the white house. Secretary, welcome. Good to be with you. You said this week with the crisis over, the cloud of Economic Uncertainty has been lifted. How is that possibly the case when in just a couple of months we could be right back to the brink again . David, first, its important to remember that what we just went through was a political crisis, not an economic crisis. I think that having come through it, what we saw on wednesday night, that admittedly at the 11th hour, a strong bipartisan majority in the house and the senate stood for the principle that is so important, that you cannot take a risk with the full faith and credit act. Does that mean there was no economic damage done, in your opinion . No. Unfortunately, we learned in 2011 that when you get close to the edge, it does do some damage. We have a resilient economy. Im confident our economy can recover. The American People have worked hard to come back from the worst recession since the great depressi depression. We need to make sure the government doesnt go through another round of brinksmanship. This cant happen again. What damage was done . Theyll be looking through the Economic Data for weeks and months to come, both in government and out of government. We did see our borrowing costs go up in the short term. We know that from the shutdown there was a loss of economic activity. I cant give you a number today of what it is. I know the direction. The direction is it took an economy that is fighting hard to get good Economic Growth going to create jobs for the American People, and it took it in the wrong direction. Our job in washington is to move things in the right direction. This one was a little bit scary because it got so close to the edge. And i think what i heard from them was that they have confidence in our economy, much as the Business People i talked to have confidence in our economy. I think what we need to do here in washington is to go from the coming together on wednesday night where we saw a strong bipartisan majority do the right thing and make progress from there, show that we can work together. So one more economic question. A lot of republicans are calling about the fact that whatever drama was here that the sequester cuts have been locked in place, these automatic spending cuts that have kept spending down at a historic level. Do you think that has hurt the economy, hurt Economic Growth, the fact weve had this lower spending level . David, i think there is no question but that the deep spending cuts that are part of sequestration are holding back the economy. There are competing ranges, whether its a half percent or more, up to a percentage of gdp. The president has made clear that we think you should replace some of the sequestration cuts with sensible, balanced entitlement and tax reforms to put us in the right direction for the future. Who do you blame for the inability to do what youve done in the past . Obviously, there was a faction, particularly in the house, that took control of some of the direction of this debate. I would just look to what Republican Leaders have said themselves about how inadvisable it is and how it cant happen again. I think the message Going Forward is there was a turning point on wednesday night, and this wont happen again. It cant happen again. The journal has a piece of headline that says, obama wins big whoop can he lead . Is that the crisis that the president decries . Is that the lasting part of his legacy here . Doesnt he have to absorb a big responsibility for that . I think the history of Crisis Management goes back longer than this administration, and i think the divisions in congress are is as deep as theyve been in modern times. You know, you look at what weve been able to accomplish notwithstanding all the noise. Were in a very different place now than we were even in 2011, 2010. Our deficit is cut in half as a percentage of the economy from when the president took office. Arent automatic spending cuts, which the president opposed, a big reason for that . Its part of that, but there is a tendency in washington to look at one piece of whats happened, and we have to look at the entirety of it. If you go back and you look, part of the spending cuts we agreed on them, because any budget agreement was going to reduce spending in domestic and defense programs. Part of the deficit reduction was from the tax bill that passed at the beginning of this year that raised the top tax rates and repealed the bush tax cuts. The last part of the savings is coming from these automatic acrosstheboard cuts. Now, i do believe that those should be replaced with more sensible policies. But the vast majority of the deficit reduction will still be in place. So i think weve done a lot. Weve got to shift the focus from just fiscal policy. Fiscal policy is very important, but there is a lot that we need to do to build and grow this economy. We need infrastructure, the farm bill needs to pass. The immigration bill is hublgge important to the economy. Im hoping we can find a place where we can work together. Obama care is not going away. It is law. Republicans say they will not stop fighting. And the rollout, the exchanges, getting people enrolled has been very, very difficult. From the usa today, their coverage is this. The federal Health Care Exchange was built using tenyearold technology and the next six months will be an overhaul of the entire system. Democrats supported the allies of this president and say this has been a disastrous start to obama care. David, first let me say that the huge outpouring of interest shows how important it is that we get this right. There are millions of americans who want health insurance. Its important for our economy for them to have health insurance. I think that there is no one more frustrated than the president at the difficulty in the website. I can tell you most people around me have been working fulltime on solving the more immediate challenges with getting the government open and dealing with making sure that we didnt default. There are people working 24 hours a day around the clock. Hhs has said it will be putting out information on a monthly basis. Hhs has got plans to fix this, and they have to fix this. It has to be done right. Can obama care survive in its current form if the systems are not improved for delivery of the care . David, the test is going to be in january how many people are enrolled and whats the quality of service that theyre getting. I think if we get that right, everyone will regret that the early weeks were a little choppy on the website. But the test is, are people getting coverage and are they getting the care that they need, and were confident were going to be on track to do that. Final area, in addition to trying to keep the government open and deal with the debt issue, youre also dealing with the sanctions against iran, and this is a big issue as you think about negotiations with iran. Whats the bottom line position of this administration . What does iran have to do to remove sanctions which are hurting tremendously . I think its premature to talk about the evening. I think we have to go back and look at why the sanctions were put there in the first place. They were put in place for the government of iran to think about their choices, to bring them to the table to change their economic program. I think the sanctions are working and thats why theyve started. I think we need to roll back the Nuclear Program, and i think when those movements come, any changes will have to be proportionate. But its premature to talk about any changes right now. Thats interesting. If they were to enrich less uranium, they could have an easing of the sanctions, which, you know, to israeli leaders and others, they say thats a mistake. Unless you completely dismantle the sanctions, dont take your foot off the pedal thats inflicting this economic pain. I havent said what needs to happen for there to be a reduction in sanctions. What im saying is we need to see that theyre taking the steps to move away from having Nuclear Weapons capacity. We need to see real tangible evidence of it and that we will not make moves on the sanctions until we see those kinds of moves. Mr. Secretary, thanks as always. Thank you for being here. You just heard secretary lew talk about those economic sanctions against iran. Those comments come as World Leaders are meeting to discuss if and when iran will give up its Nuclear Program. Is there reason for optimism or even more suspicion . Sn even more suspicion . Sn next, ill speak to israel before Global Opportunities were part of their investment strategy. Before they funded scholarships to the schools that gave them scholarships. Before they planned for their parents future needs and their sons future. They chose a partner to help manage their wealth, one whose insights, solutions and approach have been relied on for over 200 years. Thats the value of trusted connections. Thats u. S. Trust. Help the gulf when we made recover and learn the gulf, bp from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. I can tell you safety is at the heart of everything we do. Weve added cuttingedge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a stateoftheart monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twentyfourseven. And were sharing what weve learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. Our commitment has never been stronger. And we are back. Joining me now the Prime Minister of israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Netanyahu, welcome back to meet the press. Thank you. Its good to be with you, david. I want to start where i ended with secretary jack lew, talking about the iran nuclear threat. Before i ask about sanctions, let me ask you broadly. Here you have this meeting going on with western powers and the United States and president aroni of iran. Why cant this be seen as progress . Iranians making concessions, conversations moving forward . It could be. It depends how these conversations end up. We had conversations in 2005 with north korea and everybody hoped it would produce a stark result. As it turns out, they did produce a stark result, a bad one. Iran detonated its Nuclear Explosive devices. You dont want that repeating. The question is not of hope, the question is of actual results and the test is the result. The result has to be the full dismantling of Irans Nuclear program. If thats achieved, thats good. If its achieved peacefully, even better. What is it that iran is actually offering . What are they prepared to do . Your position is clear. Stop enrichment of uranium because thats how you get a nuclear weapon. Thats how you dismantle Irans Nuclear program. What was striking to me about my conversation with secretary lew was also reported by the New York Times this week, and let me show with regard to sanctions and how they could be eased. The headline white house weighs easing irans sanction bite. The obama administration, in the wake of a promising first round of Nuclear Diplomacy with iran is weighing a proposal to ease the pain of sanctions on tehran by offering it access to billions of dollars in frozen funds if the iranian government curbs its program. Do you think thats true, do you think iran is ready to ease sanctions before iran goes far enough to dismantling its Nuclear Program . My policy has been consistent, and its been consistent for close to 20 years. This is my third term as Prime Minister, so ive been dealing with the subject a long time. I think the pressure has to be maintained on iran, increased on iran, until it actually stops the Nuclear Program, that is, dismantles it. I think any partial deal could end up dissolving the sanctions. There are a lot of countries just waiting for a signal to get rid of their sanctions regime. And i think you dont want to go through halfway measures. Syria just committed to fully dismantling its chemical weapons program. Suppose syria said, well, were going to dismantle 20 of it and give the ease of sanctions because of that. Nobody would buy that. Thats exactly what iran is trying to do. Theyre trying to get a partial deal that they know could end up dissolving the sanctions regime and would keep them with the Nuclear Weapons capability. So i dont advise doing that. As far as the freezing of assets, as far as i remember, those assets were frozen for three reasons. One, irans terrorist actions. Two, its aggressive actions, particularly in the gulf. And three, its continued refusal to stop the production of weapons of mass production mass destruction. You know, if you get all three done and they stop doing it, well, then i suppose you could unfreeze them. Do you support republicans in congress right now who are actually pushing for tougher sanctions before you get to any potential easing . Tougher tansanctions to put tha much more pain on the iranians to force that much for of a concession . Im not going to get into specific action. Certainly not how ive always dealt with it. Its a national, and in my view, an international issue. Those sanctions werent israeli sanctions. Ive always advocated them, but the International Community adopted very Firm Resolutions by the security council. And heres what those resolutions said. They should iran should basically dismantle its centrifuge and stop work on its heavy plutonium water reactor. Its very important to stress that its for Nuclear Weapons. Nobody has challenged irans or any countries pursuit of nuclear energy. But several of your neighbors, including canada and mexico, have very robust programs for nuclear energy. They dont have centrifuges and they dont have heavy water reactors. Theyve had oil and gas coming out of their ear for generations, but suppose you believe them. And then they say, why do you suppose i keep those things, and the answer is because they want the ability to make Nuclear Weapons. I propose sticking by that. Thats the way to peacefully end irans Nuclear Weapons. Let me ask you quickly about syria. Having just been to the region, being on the Israeli Border with syria and tracking the fact that you have an opposition in syria that is being infused by sunni jihadist groups on the border. Do you not, when you think about the security of israel and the region, would you prefer to have assad remain in power . No, i certainly dont. I dont think assad is in power, i think iran is in power. Because basically syria has become an iranian protectorate. Irans henchmen are doing the fighting for assad for his army, to the extent he has an army. So understand that syria is iran and iran is syria as things have developed. Now, of course, we have the other option which is no less appetizing, which is equally unappetizing, which is the first jihad, al qaeda, uthra. One would hope we could find a third way to give the syrian people, first of all, some life. They are undergoing a who tribble tr horrible tragedy. I saw a documentary the other day about syrian girls who are selling themselves, basically, to get something to eat for their families, refugee girls, and the displacement of millions of people and the death of over 100,000 people. By the way, iran participates as we speak in the mass slaughter of hundreds of or, rather, thousands of men, women and children in syria. I think we want to end that tragedy. We want to end that in the best way that we dont have an iranian protectorate or regime in afghanistan in syria. Prime minister netanyahu, thank you so much for your time this morning. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, david. Coming up here, back to politics and the budget fight fallout. The future of obama care. Why some say the internal divide among republicans might actually hurt the party in next years Midterm Elections. Our political roundtable is back in just a moment. I know what youre thinking. Transit fares as in the 37 billion transit fares we help collect each year. No . Oh, right. Youre thinking of the 1. 6 million daily Customer Care interactions xerox handles. Or the 900 Million Health insurance claims we process. So, its no surprise to you that companies depend on todays xerox for services that simplify how work gets done. Which is. Pretty much what weve always stood for. With xerox, youre ready for real business. To connect our forces to what they need, when they need it. To help troops see danger, before it sees them. To answer the call of the brave and bring them safely home. [ female announcer ] around the globe, the people of boeing are working together, to support and protect all who serve. Thats why were here. announcer scottrade knows our and invest their own way. With scottrades smart text, i can quickly understand my charts, and spend more time trading. Their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in realtime. Plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. Because they know i dont trade like everybody. I trade like me. Im with scottrade. announcer ranked highest in Investor Satisfaction with selfdirected services by j. D. Power and associates. Maestro of project management. Baron of the buildout. You need a permit. To be this awesome. And you. Rent from national. Because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. And go. You can even take a fullsize or above, and still pay the midsize price. aaron purrrfect. vo meeeow, business pro. Meeeow. Go national. Go like a pro. We wanted to share a few articles and book excerpts from the week, including a piece from the journal on what the president should tackle next. This is my interview with brad stone and amazon. You can download the flipboard app on your smartphone or tablet, and once th meet the press is back with our political roundtable. Here this morning, e. J. Dionne, david brooks, Maria Bartiromo and Andrea Mitchell. The president is back. Hell try to talk about Health Care Tomorrow and rolling out all the glitches of obama care. 476,000 applications have been submitted to get care, but there are still a lot of problems to deal with. E. J. Dionne, we talk about whether the conservetors are getti giving up the fight. Jim demint rights, obama care and its falgz have been front and center in the national debate. Its disastrous launch was spotlighted by our defund struggle. It will be highlighted in the next few years. I think these glitches, or bigger than glitches, would have gotten a lot more attention if they hadnt tried to shut down the government. I also hope this leads to a very large look at how government a kwi acquires i. T. Lets fix our i. T. System. Senator soochumer said it right. Are these fixable problems . I think these are fixable problems. Is there interest in obama care . There is interest in obama care. If you look at states where this is working, kentucky is notable. Theyre working on getting that state signed up. Its working. If kentucky can work, other states in the National System can work. But, you know, one of the things the president is going to announce that they have rolling out is that you can apply by telephone. You dont have you can work around this online problem. The problem with that is that this is very complicated stuff. The reason for doing it on line is youneed to shop around. And there are so many different options depending on your category. I think that the president is justifiably upset. They dont really have a fix. They can say all they want, that this shows a lot of people are interested. But theyve got a very short window here, a couple of months. And if they dont get the 7 million people, including a large number of Healthy People, this system will not work. They need the Healthy People to be enrolled in order for the economics of it to work. Some of the problems that have been reported, youve got difficulty creating accounts. Thats been a basic one. Unable to kpir tcompare the pla you say, trouble confirming applicant identities, on and on. Why is the Obama Presidency so bad at it . They have consultants they hired at the campaign, and they were just consultants, private businesses. They were built to do this. The government is not built to do this. The agencies tried to get the consultants, theyre just not trained as an institution to do this. Beyond the glitches there are other issues and that has had implications with the goal were supposed to have, and that is job creation. Businesses have changed their plans as a result of obama care. We are becoming something of a parttime employment country. Were seeing some groups moved off of health care from business because business is complaining that its too expensive. So the goal is growth, getting back to goal, from an economic standpoint. Getting back to growth and job creation. Were not there yet. Businesses are still sitting on cash and not creating jobs. We were moving toward a parttime economy sadly long before obama care came on the scene. Its not clear at all that obama care is a big push in this direction. On davids point, on i. T. , a lot of this was private i. T. , and i think the issue is about how government acquires i. T. Versus the flexibility the campaign had. We need to give government the freedom to do this right and not have rules to make it hard. It was unlike a private industry. They were quarterbacking all the 92 agencies. All the conservative programs, they have exchanges. They have exactly this kind of program, so if this website messes up, republicans should not be ecstatic because this is part of their own plan. He should not be bragging about anything. Jim demint and the heritage have been completely discredited among republicans. Or hatch criticizing them. They will not have the power. This gets back to the question of winners and losers after this week. Well get to the president and whether hes won, if hes won anything, as some people believe he has. Here was the week magazine way graphic cover. Self h sel selfinflicted wounds depicting hatch and boehner. Will they get back on track . I think they will. You dont learn a lesson by getting kicked twice by a mule. Does it matter what Mitch Mcconnell and john boehner say . Yes. Because a lot of people in the Republican Party know if they do this again, in 2016 theyll suffer. You talk about obamas leadership. Why did he win this . He dealt with the Republican Party that he has to deal with, not the Republican Party that he wish existed. He sent the signal and now republicans know that if they want to deal, they have to start somewhere closer to the center, not on the far right. I cant believe Mitch Mcconnell is one of the winners, that he helped to craft the final agreement, that he was the intermediary that the white house was actually working with. What about the other side of this, which is if the president is seen as winning tlar, there lot of conservatives, and im not talking about the leadership, im talking about the senate, the mike leeves, and he said, look, its a fraction of the Republican Party. Weve got to dig in and not deal with this guy at all. Some of these people, dwight eyisenhower had a phrase and he proves there is some way they should be. Incredibly selfdestructive. The question is will the Republican Party have a civil war over the nature of the party . I think were seeing rumblings of that. The tea party has a side. They have a political movement, they ever a think tank, they have a donor base. The other side, the republicans want to be able to compete in california, in new york, along the east coast, and illinois. They dont have a side. They have american crossroads, a pack, they have a cocktail party. They actually need some fundraising efforts, some grassroots organizations to match the tea party or else the tea party will take over. Is ted cruz the face of the republican . A force in the Business Community but a force to be rec o reckoned with . I dont think anyone won here. I think the American People are so disgusted at the inability to get anything done. I think the president has to win back the trust of the American People, because we cant have these crises every month. Whether he is the face of the Republican Party, i doubt it. But everyone is a loser in this. Its too frustrating. We cant move forward. I think the country lost because this should never have happened. But i think the country was clear about who was responsible for this. If you look at the nbc poll, the tea party, for example, at its peak in 2010, 44 of americans had positive feelings. Its down to 21 . And obviously the Republican Partys ratings collapsed. This sends a message. You would think republicans might learn from that. Let me introduce, andrea, some of the criticism ive read about the president. To paraphrase the New York Times on friday, he writes, okay, if the vision is that he won, what is it that hes actually won . Has he changed the dynamic of negotiating in town . The criticism is, look, hes great at running against someone or something, in this case, the party. When is he going to demonstrate that he can bring along converse to his side and actually get something done . It started with the first meeting of the budget conferees and it ends supposedly on february 15. Both sides seem to want some relief from the sequester and i think thats where the running room is if they can come up with some creative ways to finance that, whether its to bac tobac gasoline. He has 40 republicans that have never been with him. How does he siphon it off to get people to go with him . Hes never figured out how to do that. I think there is an opportunity now with immigration. Either republicans decide we have to change and you got a big substance win, or they decide theyre going to destroy themselves and you have a political win. Isnt that better than medicare . For democrats, medicare cuts raises lots of problems politically, policywise. But e. J. , do republicans in a Midterm Election year also want to propose the medicare cuts . Youre precisely right. I agree on going toward immigration. I think there is at least some potential there. But i think the medicaid the republicans dont want to be the leaders in cutting medicare because they have a very old constituency compared to the democrats, oddly, particularly in the tea party. The president a lot of times when people say the president should lead, what they want him to do is adopt republican positions and then push for those. Thats not leadership, thats a capitulation. I think we should stop talking about the grand bargain and try to have normal leadership in the next few months. I want you to do something, maria. We talk about accomplishments in the administration, a second term agenda. Part of that agenda were seeing play out realtime with big news about jp morgan. A huge settlement, 13 billion, with a b, in an attempt to settle all the civil litigation that responds to whether they sold subprime loans into the marketplace to fannie and freddie. But this goes to a larger point, which is this reckoning for wall street thats finally happening that a lot of liberals have been cheering for. Yeah, i think that reckoning continues. This is worse than people expected. A lot of people thought it was 11 billion, it ended up at 13. Also very important here is the fact they did not do away with the possibility of criminality. This is jp morgan. This is jamie diamond, the ceo, who is viewed frankly as one of the most responsible players in the whole subprime mess did not need federal bailout money with the leader, did things the government wanted him to do in buying Washington Mutual and bear stearns, and yet they become a big target. This has been one of the repercussions of the financial crisis, and that is the pendulum swinging a little far in terms of regulation. This is the cost on business, and this is one of the reasons the business sits on cash because they worry about whats sitting around the corner. As far as jp morgan is concerned, this will be large with the potential of opening civil lawsuits. Certainly the regulation bite has become a lot bigger, and that has been a regulation for business and that has been big for business in terms of more people. Hillary clinton has come back in politics in a big way. Does this mean shes laying the groundwork for 2016 . Norfolk southern whats your function . Hooking up the country helping business run trains they haul everything, safely and on time. Tracks they connect the factories built along the lines. And that means jobs, lots of people, making lots and lots of things. Lets get your business rolling now, everybody sing. Norfolk southern whats your function . Helping this big country move ahead as one Norfolk Southern hows that function . We know in the cyber world, threats are always evolving. At first, we were protecting networks. Then, we were protecting the transfer of data. And today its evolved to infrastructure. Finance. And military missions. Were constantly innovating to advance the front line in the cyber battle, wherever it takes us. Thats the value of performance. Northrop grumman. Hillary clinton, saturday, she made her first public appearance since leaving the administration. She acknowledged her past political history. Ive been in a lot of elections. Yes, a coy smile there, andrea. A chance to connect in virginia with a lot of that donor base, right . Donor base. This is a oneup to one extent, but this is obviously putting more than just a toe in the water and signaling to women. Thats a big theme in that virginia race. This is a natural constituency for her, and its very clear shes doing things everyone would do to tee up a race. I agree totally with that. I dont think she knows yet whether shes going to run, at least when you talk to people, but she sure looks like shes going to run. Mccullough is ahead with women by 20 in the polls. When she talks about the ways of washington right now in this debate, kind of a bleak reference, its still interesting. Listen to this. Recently in washington, unfortunately, we have seen examples of the wrong kind of leadership. When politicians choose scorched earth over common ground. Interesting. Again, an oblique illusion to whats been going on. Look, i think shes definitely running. I think business likes hillary a lot. I think they know bills record a and they know he balanced two budgets and produced the ability to bring two sides together as well as wealthy reform. I think its definitely something to come. Im in the coronation mode. I think shes running, i agree with that, but the country is really angry with politics as usual. The second thing i would say is the democrats are moving left economically, and, you know, we got waste stagnation, widening in equality. There is a real opening for someone on the left. She has to be concerned about the same problem that doomed her last campaign, which is being the front runner too early. Hillary was a lot more popular last time than barack obama. A look at the week ahead in politics, includes ted cruz a look at the week ahead in polit[ male announcer ]cruz the founder of mercedesbenz once wrote something on a sheet of paper and placed it in his factory for all to see. Four simple words where the meaning has never been lost. The challenge always accepted. And the calling forever answered. Introducing the allnew 2014 sclass. Mercedesbenz. The best or nothing. Introducing the allnew 2014 sclass. Ido more with less with buless energy. Hp is helping ups do just that. Soon, the worlds most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy. Multiply that across over a thousand locations, and theyll provide the same benefit to the environment as over 60,000 trees. Thats a trend we can all get behind. The ocean gets warmer. The peruvian anchovy harvest suffers. It raises the price of fishmeal, cattle feed and beef. Bny mellon turns insights like these into powerful investment strategies. For a university endowment. It funds a marine biologist. Who studies the peruvian anchovy. Invested in the world. Bny mellon. Help the gulf when we made recover and learn the gulf, bp from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. I can tell you safety is at the heart of everything we do. Weve added cuttingedge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a stateoftheart monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twentyfourseven. And were sharing what weve learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. Our commitment has never been stronger. 2014, were not sure yet, right . Time is going to tell, but virginia governor, a lot of federal workers, you see the impact of the shutdown. Terry mccullough was leading before the shutdown, but now we show him down by eight points. Go to the next one, more virginians blame republicans for the shutdown. Thats higher than the numbers we had in our wall street journal poll. And look at this negative for the Republican Party overall in the state of virginia. 62 unfavorable rate for the party. Democrats, 45 . In isolation, you would say ths not great. But democrats could sweep those three statewide races. Thats a big deal. The president is already out there thinking about 2016. He is. He didnt get to do much golfing or fundraising. The House Democrats say theyve actually gotten people to suddenly say they want to run for congress now, those that were waiting for 2016. Now they want to run because they think the shutdown is bad politics. Ted cruz, does he come out of this stronger or weaker . He is stronger amongst the tea party. That is 100 clear. This is already his third trip to iowa. The man has not been in the Iowa State Senate a year and hes already making his third trip to iowa. This is going to be a packed house. This is the big reagan dinner, Iowa Republican dinner there. I talk to iowa insiders and they say if he was in it today, he would win it. How does the president try to change this trajectory . Hell be talking tomorrow. If all else fails, theyll have to find a fall person. Say, this didnt work, fire somebody. Kathleen sebelius is very firm about her standing. If all else fails, bring in someone to, quote, unquote, fix this. Thank you, chuck todd. Appreciate it. Thank you, chuck todd. Appreciate it. Thrusters at 30 i cant get her to warp. Losing thrusters. I need more power. Give me more power [ mainframe ] located. Ge deepsea fuel technology. A 50,000pound, ingeniously wired machine that optimizes raw data to help safely discover and maximize resources in extreme conditions. On seems rather extreme. Why cant we maximize our. Ready. Brilliant. Lets get out of here. Warp speed. But at xerox weve embraced a new role. Working behind the scenes to provide companies with services. Like helping hr departments manage benefits and pensions for over 11 million employees. Reducing document costs by up to 30 . And processing 421 billion dollars in accounts payables each year. Helping thousands of companies simplify how work gets done. Hows that for an encore . With xerox, youre ready for real business. Hows that for an encore . If we dont double the number of kids graduating from high school in the next 8 years, our country wont be able to compete globally. What uncle sam needs now are more good teachers. Are you up for it . You can help kids graduate. The more you know. Here now, some of this weeks images to remember. Congratulations to the boston red sox, and as much as this pains me, to the st. Louis cardinals who beat our dodgers. Theyll face each other in the world series. Its going to be a good one. They epitomize the team, both of them. Savannah guthrie sits down live with dick cheney to talk about his revelations in his new book heart about his own struggle with heart disease. Thats all for us today. Well be back next week, of course, if its sunday. Ask him anything, the socalled mayor of the enter net, reddit founder discusses entrepreneurships, startups and making millions while still in college. Plus, the future of drones. Well talk to airware founder jonathan downey. With reporters Colleen Taylor from tech crunch and Quentin Hardy of the New York Times. This week on press here. Good morning, everyone, im scott mcgrew. Each week i introduce you to someone, and i usually try to give a brief sketch of who that person is before we start asking him or her questions. I find that summary particularly difficult this morning because my guest this week is alexis