white house press briefing since secret service agents found cocaine stashed in the west wing. reporters have a lot of questions. bill: gillian, hello. our white house team confirming that agents found the drug in a bag in a personal cubby area used by staffers and guests into the west wing. a secondary drug test confirmed it was in fact cocaine. the first family was at camp david when agents found it in a routine sweep. gillian: and begin there for hour two. bill: bill hemmer. john roberts and sandra have the day off. cocaine is a drug, along with oxycontin and fentanyl, begin all new at 2:00 right now. gillian: a federal judge in louisiana says likely the biden administration censored free speech, and blocking officials from contacting social media companies about content. a lawsuit brought forward by louisiana and missouri, accusing government officials going too far and pressure ling them to censor posts during the pandemic. overreach in doing so and influence ove
gerald floor whip inflation now button. the cheer leading doesn t help inflation. the fed helps inflation. that s what volker proved that raising rates aggressively brought inflation under control for decades. along with a sensible monetary policy. so, you know, this is not something the countries and presidents had to deal with in recent decades. but it s on the fed. the question is when are they going to raise rates? and what are they waiting for? but i will say, what s show surreal about the gap in biden s numbers on the economy versus the record, i mean 6.6 million new jobs record for first term. manufacturing up, exports up. all that s being overwhelmed by the inflation narrative. and the inflation affects people where they live. i get it. but miss administration deserves credit for what s gone right as well this headwinds they are flying into but ultimately the fed has to deal with it now. the van you can have good news on jobs and good news on wages. but if inflation exceeds
before the pandemic in february of 2020. the signs of recovery are almost everywhere you look and the president says he deserves some credit. the last time the question grew at this rate was 1984. and ronald reagan was telling us this morning in america. well, it s getting close to afternoon here and the sun is coming out. we re on the right track. our plan is working. and we re not going to let up now. we have a chief economist with us. grateful for your time today. we look across the sectors. leisure and hospitality, retail up 76,000 jobs. manufacturing up 15,000 jobs. when you look at this report, is it all encouraging news or is there anything that gives you pause? it s pretty good news. i think the president has a lot to cheer about and a lot has to do with the american rescue plan. it s provided a lot of support to the economy. the reopening of the economy as
tech equipment supplied by iran. let s go straight to our pentagon correspondent, barbara starr. barbara also seeing reports of high-level defections including at least four generals. do u.s. officials think that s significant? reporter: right now, john, senior u.s. intelligence officials are telling us no. and that s the problem. they are seeing no cracking in the inner circle around because char bashar all assad. they are seeing no evidence his powerful inner circle is cracking. and that imagery that has now been declassified and released today is also critical. because what it s providing the u.s. intelligence community is very specific information about where syrian forces are on the move, what they are shelling, the destruction of mosques and hospitals in critical neighborhoods. you have the video on the internet. but this is the kind of key intelligence that they are pouring over right now to get a better idea of what the syrian military s really up, to john. as the
superstition. you knew that, though. i know all that, soledad. he lives it, yes, he does. superstitious dude. we begin this northemorning iran. defense secretary leon panetta says there is a growing likelihood, quote, that israel will attack iran this spring and try to destroy its suspected nuclear program. israeli defense minister ehud barak said this, quoek, iran must be prevent fred becoming nuclear and no option should be taken off the table. let s get right to barbara starr this morning at the pentagon. good morning, barbara. good morning, soledad. a lot of chatter around here about what panetta said about all of this. it was first reported in the washington post by the very respected journalist david ignatius and confirmed to us by a pentagon official. panetta now believes there is a growing likelihood israel will strike iran sometime this spring. that israel believes iran has moved ahead. made the decision to go for a nuclear weapon is increasingly capabl