representatives. i never lost. i explained myself. some people disagreed with me. but i think the reason people get elected to congress in the end or should get elected is to lead. and that requires taking some risks. this president is very cautious. he s taking a huge risk here. he took a huge rest welcome respect to the takedown of osama bin laden. i think his risk is right. and i think the country gets more led in after tomorrow night will begin to move toward favoring limited, careful strikes without the insertion of combat troops in order to prevent a much larger-scale moral obscenity, which 180 nations including russia have said should never happen again. former representative jane harmon now at the wilson center. thanks for joining us. we appreciate it. thank you. in other news, making headlines here on the east coast, if the skies stay clear and they look great so far, an unprecedented spectacle is set
about whether or not it s going to pass. when i m talking substantively to congress about why this is important. joining me now for our daily fix, chris lizza,msnbc contributor and host of the post tv in play and usa today washington bureau chief susan page. i ll start off with you, susan. what happens if congress, and it looks better possibly in a 50-50 proposition right now, rejects this? where does the president go? is he cut off at the knees? how do they recover? what s the next step? this is a question the president has refused to answer directly for the past week as we saw him refuse to answer in st. petersburg. but the deputy national security adviser on npr this morning said the president would not go ahead with strikes if congress refuses to offer that authorization. not that he couldn t. the white house has been careful to say the president has the authority to order strikes in the absence of congressional action. but that as a political matter,
yes, we ve moved away from treating all travelers i d i denticly and moved to more let s make decisions. 12 years and under you can leave your shoes on. if you re older you don t have to take off your belt or your shoes. there was a time when you and your predecessors thought that the liquids ban might be temporary. is it pretty much here to stay, would you say? this is something we are concerned about, the use of liquids as explosive devices on planes. it s something our science and technology directorate is working on. i think we re all stuck with small bottles of shampoo. and pete, when she was governor of arizona she worked very closely on the issue of immigration with other governors and with the federal government. what did she have to say about that issue? for someone who has had a lot of experience both governor of arizona and homeland security? she said one of her big
decision onto capitol hill. i put it before congress because i could not honestly claim that the threat posed by assad s use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians and women and children posed an imminent direct threat to the united states. in that situation obviously i don t worry about congress. we do what we have to do to keep the american people safe. former california congresswoman jane harmon is the president and ceo of the woodrow wilson international center, and she joins us now. ms. harmon, thanks so much for being on the program. thank you, luke. how do you read the president s performance here in the g 20? he obviously was not able to get ten nations in support as that was the ideal move they wanted to accomplish. yes. how do you read the situation? i read it positively. and i also read the move to ask congress s view very positively. i was concerned last week about an extremely messy process.
it looks to me as though the white house is signalling that he would not go ahead, and we d have a situation where it seems to me that would be a huge defeat for the president. it would be unprecedented in recent memory. it would definitely invigorate a lot of libertarians who have come into congress recently. chris, you guys are doing a great vote tally at the washington post, sort of tracking where members of congress are on this issue. a lot more are opposed to any action in syria as opposed to support it. i think the latest we had was still 103 undecided. you wrote that column talking about whether or not nancy pelosi this might be the hardest whip job she s ever had to do, at least since health care. well, i would say certainly since health care. i would actually say it s probably slightly unfair to put this on nancy pelosi. she has said she supports it but she is not whipping it. that said, i think there is a desire from the white house to try to round up as many liberal