has bowed out. the white house is looking for the right person to put in that position. toby cosgrove would be the right choice. but the cleveland clinic, obviously, is taking up a lot of his team. there are a lot of candidates that i m sure the white house is going the vetting process. should that person come from the v.a. or from outside? i honestly think it needs to come from outside the v.a. sloan gibson doing a great job as the interim. he s only been in the position for about a week. he s only been at the v.a. for three months. he s got the capability, and he certainly has the attitude, i think torsion get in and shake things up inside this culture within the system. the bar s high for the v.a. but also for all of you as lawmakers, especially on this particular committee. you have to show that you re going to change this and not just complain about it because then it gets dismissed as paul tickets. i know you understand that. the senate has a bill put together as funds an
you re familiar with what s on the books in virginia. yes. i m curious if you can compare what the sort of situation is in florida, how out of line it is with other states and what needs to be changed there. florida is certainly not alone. there are several states with stand your ground law. i can say in virginia our state law is basically for personality. if you re faced with deadly force, you can use deadly force to defend yourself. i will say this, in the virginia legislature there is always a bill put in similar to what s in florida. it s defeated each year. the thing is we get close every time to getting it passed. it s basically leadership that tucks that bill away and sends it back to committee. this is a message for every citizen who cares about our children from sandy hook to trayvon martin. we have a serious problem here when we are watching our children die. it is painful to watch. i remember my mother telling me about emmett till and how she felt during that time. nev
is not enough. do you really think the narrative is out there that it s democrats killing this. you have the wall street journal excoriating house republicans. we have let me finish. you have a bill put together by john mccain and lindsey graham and the u.s. chamber of commerce and you re going to blame democrats? yeah. if chuck schumer does not accept the solution from the house, if he says that 80% is not good enough for him because he wants 100%, then it is his fault. i mean, think about this where we have come from. the republican party is actually working on immigration reform, it s working on legalization legislation, it s working on ways to deal with the young kids that are here in the united states that came here through no fault of their own. if that is not good enough for chuck schumer and the democratic party, then that means that they really don t want a solution, that all they want is the rhetoric to talk about immigration reform. you also need to remember, the
vote tonight or tomorrow, send it back to the senate. the senate largely gone. it raises the possibility that the new congress which is sworn in on january 3rd, thursday. that s set forth in the constitution. if they can t get their ducks in a row by then, you start over in the congress. all the negotiating and haggling we ve seen over the last several weeks and the last several intense days of negotiation between joe biden and mitch mcconnell would go for naugt. they would have to start over. that s an enormous development. i must caution that we do not know. house republican s have not tipped their hand on what they ll do. they are upset not only about having a bill put before them that requires those making more than $450,000 or $400,000 if you re an individual, 450,000 if you re a couple filing jointly, to pay a higher tax rate, income above that level goes from 30%
back late they are week. there s one bill on the floor of interest. we caught one of those famous political ad bills and that s a bill put forward by the house republicans to stop the president s welfare waiver practice. now, we all know that was a practice that says it s supposed to limit federal con straights, something the republicans have liked ordinarily. this time around they did not like it because they saw it as gutting welfare reform. so we could you mean, luke, all those lies and misrepresentations, yes. quite the traefer scontrover. paul ryan could come back later in the week to vote for that bill as it s something that a lot of republicans are proud of that they will turn it into a political ad. nbc s luke russert, thank you, sir, for joining us. take care. be well. and we ll be right back. ques?