emissions would curb it to skyrocket. the washington post said gas production has actually risen each year of obama s presidency. krista, what do you make of this? is it fair to call it a conspiracy that has been woven of the president that is now debunked? i wouldn t call it a con spir iscy, but i would call it politics as usual. everyone knows the president cannot in the short term affect the price of gas at the pump. as it happens, the high prices in the spring were about politics, but not u.s. politics, they were mostly driven by iranian politics and markets were factoring in what looked like very high risk of a war with iran because of its nuclear program, and that s really what set the prices high. appear lists at that point were predicting the price would go as high as $4, maybe $5 this summer. republicans saw an opportunity. this is, i think, going to be an
peak and it s lower than it s been, so where are the republicans now? krista, take a look at this chart, if you could. this really debunks the notion that policies of any president can have a major impact on gas prices. if you look at the prices in europe versus the prices in the united states which are reflected on the bottom, they go almost in lock step. the only difference are that american prices are lower because taxes on gasoline are lower. pretty clear, is it not, that it s one of those subjects, and i think there are a handful of them, where if it goes well, the president gets credit sometimes that he doesn t deserve, and when it goes poorly, he gets blame that he equally doesn t deserve? i think that s exactly right. we all know the price of oil is set on the world market and that is not a market that the u.s. president controls. i do, however, disagree with danielle about the keystone pipeline. if i was a republican strategist, i would be hammering that issue. and i think
showdown. david, is there a constituency for donald trump? are there a group of americans out there who are waiting for a trump endorsement so they know what to do, or trump involvement so they know to whom to write checks. gosh, i really hope that s not the case, michael, because then we re in deep doo-doo. but i do think he s playing to part of the republican base which just won t give up the ghost on portraying barack ob a obama. entity. it just won t go away. and whether he doesn t get america or doesn t understand america, or that he wasn t really born here or he doesn t understand the economy or that he s a secret service muslim, so many things, it s so engrained in their view of the president, even after three years plus of his presidency. but david, anybody who would be motivated on that issue is already in the romney camp. that s the part i don t understand. let me show you so that everybody at home knows when we re talking about. in an interview with the daily
those budgets focused on entitlement spending. focused on discretionary spending and revenues. those the pieces that have to be part of an effective plan to reduce the deficit, and when one party decides to go after one area as opposed to others and the other parties does the same thing, that s the kind of gridlock that prevents the kind of necessary action that this country has to take to reduce the deficit. one follow-up. would you be one of the senior aides that would recommend that legislation be vetoed, because it s one-sided? the white house put out a staff to that effect. look, i don t think i don t think there s a chance that this president is going to follow the priorities that the house is taking in this matter by basically going after all of these domestic programs in order to provide increases in defense, and to deal with sequestration on the defense side. it s not balanced. it s not fair, and ultimately the senate isn t going to accept it, either. all we re
well, for nearly all in beijing for cnn. the bureau chief. almost raised to that task taken been taking by academic parents to beijing as child and put into public schools an went on to report at bureau chief in tokyo and now is a senior fellow at the new america foundation. her book consent of the network examines the very challenges that we ll be addressing here. holding a copy there. lee ballenger, you ve made the most explicit proposal for how we should address journalism in the digital age. give us briefly your diagnosis of the problem and what the solution should be. sure. i mean, my expertise is really about the question of development of the first amendment in the united states and public policy relating to the press. so that s where that s sort of my lode stone as i think about this. i ve also been connected to the press in a variety of ways, including my father owning, running a small newspaper. and i sit on the board of the washington post companies. i ve w