expanding student loans for young people. generally speaking my theory has been number one, that yes, i ve got a strong chief of staff, but i m holding every cabinet member accountable, and i want to have strong interactions with them directly. number two, i have an open door policy, where i want people to be bringing me bad news on time so that we can fix things. and the challenge, i think, that we have going forward is not so much my personal management style or particular issues around white house organization. it actually has to do with what i referred to earlier, which is we have these big agencies, some of which are outdated. some of which are not designed properly. we ve got for example 16 different agencies that have some responsibility to help businesses, large and small in all kinds of ways, whether it s
personal management style or particular issues around white house organization. it actually has to do with what i referred to earlier which is we have big agencies. some of which are outdated. some of which are not designed properly. in our history, usually when we have made big progress on issues it s been when one party controlled the government for a period of time. the big strides we made in the new deal, the big strides we made with the great society. those were times when you had a big majority. joining me with reaction, charles krauthammer, fox news contributor. you heard the president talk about two things. how i am holding every cabinet member accountable, said in spontaneous to a question about obama care and the problems. and comments about when we have made big progress on issues one party had a big majority. on the first, the claim is
personal management style, or particularly issues with the white house organization, it has to do with what i refer to earlier, which is we have the big agencies, some of which are outdated, some of which are not designed proper flichlt our history. usually when we ve made big progress it s been party controlled the government for a period of time. big strides we made in the new deal with the great society, you know those were times when you had a big majority. joining me now with reaction is charles krauthammer. your thoughts because you heard the president talk about how i am holding every cabinet member accountable, then, comments about making progress and issues it s been when one party had a big majority.
north central texas without power and that number could rise if this continues. michaela? we ll be watching that with you. stay warm. we are going to return to our coverage of the storm and, of course, nelson mandela s passing. first, let s bring you up to date on your other headlines. president obama spoke out in defense of healthcare.gov in a wide-ranging interview with msnbc. the president says the website is now working and there s no reason for people to go without insurance. he defended his management of the rollout saying he is holding every cabinet member accountable. no claim of responsibility yet in the shooting death of an american teacher in libya. ronald thomas smith was killed in a drive-by shooting in benghazi on thursday. his death comes days after al qaeda called for libyans to attack u.s. interests as revenge for october s capture of a suspect off the streets of tripoli. american officials are pushing authorities in libya for a vigorous investigation. secretary
that they follow through, they execute as you envision they should? generally speaking, my theory has been, number one, that, yes, i ve got a strong chief of staff, but i m holding every cabinet member accountable, and i want to have strong interactions with them directly. number two is i have an open door policy where i want people to be bringing me bad news on time so that we can fix things. jon: let s bring in now fox news media analyst howard kurtz. chris matthews calls his show hardball. you say this is not a ardball interview. well, jon, i expected a sympathetic and friendly interview from a guy who used to work for temperature tip to kneel and jim hawaii carter, but i thought matthews would sprinkle in a few tough-sounding questions just to cover himself journalistically. the one you plays is the hardest question he asked. instead, the host wasn t even throwing softballs, he was