this whole, sorted story. joining me now is a specialist in sorted stories, mike walters, from tmz. good to have you here today. thanks nor having me. martha: talk to me about this. one -frt big questions is this issue of timeline. why did he continue even in interviews to talk about this woman as if she existed after he says he knew she did not? well, i can tell you according to them in their printed statement to the media, that on december 6th owe found out while at a espn award show because he got a phone call from the same phone number that he was talking to his quote unquote girlfriend on. when he got the call he realized it was a hoax. now, the issue is, several days later he did an interview with the media, again bringing up his girlfriend, and how she died of cancer and kind of did the whole emotional thing. so he lied. and the problem with lying, especially in the position he s in, is that people start to question your character. and what is going on here is,
look is he a bad person because he did it? well he was protecting his team. if you have ever been involved in sports like that they were heading into a pcs championship game. this was really important to his team and the school. do you make media splash and distract the player. a lot of people would say, including me who is in the media, i think he did the right thing, you protect your team and immediately afterward you start talking about it. martha: that may be the one element of this story that i do understand that makes sense to me. i have a lot of questions about that phone call. you know, because it s like, oh the phone rang, then i knew she was not alive and the whole thing was on a hoax. who was on that phone? did he have a conversation with someone? was it the other guy ronaiah tuiasosopo? or did he ever get that call? or did he just say that he got that call because he knew he needed a catalyst for the gig to be up. that is a great point. i can tell you we spoke to somebody
bill: fox news alert. word from the white house regarding this christian pastor, an american, who has been in jail in iran for some time. expected to go before a judge next week. here is the statement from the white house. we remain troubled by the case of u.s. citizen saeed abedini arrested three months ago on charges relating to his religious beliefs. he is a christian now, conversion. we call upon iranian authorities to release him immediately. this is something we ve been watching for several weeks as it develops because the word from tehran this week, his case will be handed to a judge who has a very tough reputation inside of tehran. we re watching that story. we ll see whether or not the white house statement can move anything. martha: some brand new
own story on that timeline. mike, what did you find? reporter: well, bill the story gets pretty convoluted when it isn t true. let s try to make sense of the date. starting with december the 6th. that is the date the university and te o learned there was no lennay connect cue kekua. he got a phone call from the supposed dead girl s friend number with someone on the line. december 8th. he gave an interview to a website. he talked about losing his grandmother and girlfriend to cancer. on december 9th. he gave interview on december 10th. he talked about playing after the fix tick schuss girl died. after the fictitious girl was buried. twice he went back to the story of heart break when he knew it wasn t true. 9 athletic director of the notre dame said the university didn t know until december the 26th. bill: how are you gauging reaction from students on that campus? they revered this guy.
what have they gotten done? 7.8%? they have gotten done virtually nothing, bill. as you said a year ago was the last formal meeting of this council. at that meeting a year ago, they put forward some proposals, a very limited scope. for example, pressed for more infrastructure projects, faster tourist and business visas, look back at regulations. virtually nothing has happened. you have to say this council is all but dead. it was split right from the get-go between business, which wanted to stimulate private sector, and some labor leaders who wanted more government spending. it was split right from the start. it has achieved virtually nothing. bill: sounds like the divide idealogically between john boehner and the president in the first place. any good news out of this story? out of this particular thing and council meeting and virtually dead? no, i don t think it is. it made no recommendations that were implemented that created any serious job creation. i have good news on other