across america. pennsylvania, a massive fire breaks out at a local business and folk visible from miles away and the authority increasing water pressure to fight the inferno and investigators looking for the cause and nevada, an electrical transformer near the las vegas strip explodes. and knocking out electrical power to the monty carlo resort and several other casinos and authorities shutting down a nearby interstate for a time because the the debris and smoke from the explosion made driving conditions dangerous and crews putting out the fire eventually and no injuries reported. indiana, the pilot who safely landed a passier plane on the hudson, january of 09 appearing at purdue university. captain sullenberger covering words of wisdom at a commencement address. none of us knows what
guantanamo. and, promptly close the detention facility at began guantanamo consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the united states and interest of justice, i here by order that. and, we then provide the process whereby guantanamo will be closed, no later than one year from now. martha: no later than one year from now, january of 09 and now it is two years from that date and as we all know, it is still up and running with more than 170 prisoners, still being held at guantanamo bay. so, what is the hold-up? what is going on with this and with the trials that we re all waiting for? here now is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainees and senior legal fellow for the heritage foundation. good morning, good to see you. hi, martha, good to see you. martha: the president was emphatic about this and of course there have been a number of big distractions including
stuart varney joins us now live. stu, what do you think of these numbers? does this make a dent at all? reporter: no. let s not get carried away here, gregg. the recession ended 18 months ago. to still have 420,000 new faces appearing in if one week on the unemployment lines, that is not a good signal. it means it s disappointing and that this is not going to make any dent in the unemployment situation right now. gregg: all right. want to draw a comparison with a graphic that we re going to put up on the screen right now. obama versus reagan, comparing the two economic recoveries after a recession. analyze what we re seeing here, stuart. reporter: okay. ronald reagan came to power in january of 1981, he inherited a nasty recession. he took the unemployment rate from 10.8% down to 7.7%. president obama came to power in january of 09, inherited a nasty recession. during the same time frame compared to ronald reagan, the
chief lost his son. and only one charge was he convicted on. the justice department gave the impression that that couldn t happen. yeah, it s totally absurd. he bought the bomb and the truck and cell phone, it seems like ready for the civilian trial and made a mistake, one out of 285 charges and what s going to happen with khalid shaikh mohammed when they come in next and i think this is the first one and i think they re going to have to reassess because they made a mistake. his case is relevant as well what the job objected to, the enens had aed interrogation techniques, the judge didn t like it and he threw out star witness testimony and that may also happen with ksm. i hope they look at it because they look at the evidence and the witness who sold him the bomb got thrown out. we met with obama in january of 09 and they held up this,
from the republicans but martha, it s a work in progress, there are going to be all sorts of negotiations and discussions. today, we just don t know the answer to the question. martha: the big thing we don t know in my mind, doug, is how pragmatic he is as a politician. is this a man who wants another term, or is this a man who wants to stick very firry to firmly to his gut and what it tells him about how things should work in washington. you wrote an interesting op-ed and in it you said basically if he is going to reach out the first thing he needs to do is deal with the tax cuts issue. absolutely, martha. he has to extend the bush tax cuts, either permanently or as i suggested in the article, for all americans for at least two years, and the middle class component, for the foreseeable future. that would be an olive branch that the the republicans would have to take seriously. it s an open question, again, after yesterday whether that will happen. martha: we all remember this mome