today s murder of two police officers. and there is no justification. kristen welker in hawaii where the president is vacationing. kristen, attorney general eric holder is also released a statement condemning this attack. how is the administration approaching this? well, alex, the entire administration is condemning the killing of these two police officers in the strongest possible terms. administration officials have consistently echoed what we ve heard from michael brown s family, eric garner s family, which is that they are urging people to protest peacefully if they do want to protest these two cases. meanwhile, president obama also urging patience as he has called for a task force, a 90-day task force being headed by philadelphia police commissioner charles ramsey. the task force is charged with finding ways and suggestions for improving relations between local communities and police departments. meanwhile, alex, in an interview that was taped before these two police officers we
how to respond to north korea while he vacations here in hawaii. he ll be here through the new year. meanwhile, also learning from officials that the white house has reached out to china and asked for its help in investigating this matter. alex? all right, kristen welker, thank you very much. we ll check in with you again next hour. on the heels of that, let s bring in a security expert at a cyber security firm. kurt, with a welcome to you, the daily beast reporting today that many in the hacking community don t believe that north korea s behind this attack. so how compelling is the fbi evidence against that country? you re right, alex. you know, we ve seen some senior officials make some pretty emphatic statements over the past few days. but i d have to say that a large chunk, if not the majority of my colleagues in the computer science and cyber intelligence communities remain unconvinced. the data that we re seeing, that we re sharing doesn t support the hypothesis that nort
as to what it means for a state to sponsor terrorism. and we don t make those judgments just based on the news of the day. we look systematically at what s been done. and based on those facts, we ll make those determinations in the future. let s get right to the white house correspondent kristen welker in hawaii where the president s on vacation. kristen, with a good day to you, where is the white house now in determining a response? well, alex, senior administration officials say they are still weighing a range of options. that could include anything from a new round of sanctions to a counter cyber attack. but to that point that we just heard the president make that he is not ruling out the possibility of adding north korea back to the terror list. that would be a significant move. north korea was taken off the terror list in 2008 under former president george w. bush who was trying to strike a nuclear deal with the country. that deal never came about. and north korea remained off
respond to his critics who say that race relations aren t improving quickly enough under his leadership. take a listen to how he responded. on the other hand, i think an unwillingness to acknowledge that progress has been made cuts off the possibility of further progress. if critics want to suggest that america is inherently and irreducibly racist, why bother working on it? i ve seen change in my entire life, and so has this country. and those who would deny that, i think, actually foreclose the possibility of further progress rather than advancing. reporter: senior administration officials will continue to be in close contact with officials in new york as this investigation continues. and we expect that president obama will get briefed regularly while he continues with his vacation here in hawaii where he
cliff. taxes will go up for the average american by about $2,000 and could put us back into a recession. which nobody wants to see. kristen welker in hawaii. the president is coming back, but they haven t gotten the 48 hour notice. they are very much out there in play. thank you very much for joining us. appreciate it. when the senate returns tomorrow morning, there will be a new emphasis on members taking a larger role in the fiscal cliff negotiations that based off the current offer may only have a smaller deal. a member of the budget committee and outspoken voice on the left side of the aisle. thanks for joining me. good morning. mire pleasure. we were saying a lack of urgency in washington to deal with the fiscal cliff and being a member of congress especially