you ll recall several times. this is something that presidents do infrequently but it always has to be kept secret. wednesday he will be delivering the commencement address at the u.s. academy there at west point. that much we do no. thank you so much. let s go to the holy land where pope francis is hoping to reignite the mideast peace process. the pope continues his mideast pilgrimage in jerusalem. in terms of the status here, how monumental is this pope s offer? do you think it s symbolic or can it be productive? reporter: it can certainly be productive because it will take place in neutral ground.
listen with tougher sanctions. they say arm them but the ukrainians are not quite ready for that? everyone is virtually divided. right now the president wants to bring the yup european community on board. they re not sure going the route the president wants to go at this moment. interesting thing here, john, is that remember when the president ran for re-election he really leaned pretty hard on his foreign policy as a reason why he should get re-elected. iraq, afghanistan, getting osama bin laden, now going forward, foreign policy has been a black eye in the second term of his presidency. ukraine being the latest example lu also syria, questions about iran. the mideast peace process. the president is having a tough time on this trip and is clearly showing from this press conference today. tough time abroad, tough time at home if president though, let s give him credit here. he acknowledges his relationship with vladimir putin has turned south. you might remember last week in an int
say, but republicans opponents say the fight to kill it is not over. anyone enrolling but could not finish, now has a grace period in order to complete it. the mideast peace process put on hold. secretary of state john kerry scrapping a trip today. earlier this yeek, kerry reportedly offered to release an american spy who was accused of spying for israel in exchange for major concessions from israel. this morning, crews will be back out digging through the site of the devastating mudslide in washington. the death toll is now at 28. officials say hubs of people and dogs are vovrld in the search. weather conditions have been good in the recent days making
totally misguided and would be seen as a desperate attempt to avert failure. david is currently a vice president with the woodrow wilson center, and he joins me now. picking up on senator mccain using pollard for what feels like a small development in the mideast peace process. it seems like a wasted use of a bargaining chip. what do you say? just a word of perspective for you, ronald reagan, h.w. bush, bill clinton and george w. bush, all forced with israeli entreaties to release pollard over the years. they all push for power. and the reality is these presidents have said no. said no on national security grounds. you mentioned, i was at wye river in 98, and tenet was quite emotional, and said it would undermine cia morale. clinton was basically inclined to do it.
weapons out of syria. and they just they feel the u.s. has pledged for a long time to get assad out, president bashir al assad and have not done anything to fix things in syria, as the violence has gotten out of control. so the administration is going to try to reassure saudi arabia that the political process in geneva is working, they re trying to get a diplomatic solution here, and that the u.s. remains heavily involved in syria and very engaged. we re always looking when prime minister netanyahu comes to town. it s you never kind of know what s going to happen. it can be dramatic, it can be contentious. are they getting along. they don t always have the president obama and netanyahu haven t historically had the best relationship. and we re always kind of waiting, right? there s obviously talk of trying to revive the mid east peace process. what are we expecting, do you think, between them and in terms of really accomplishing something? well, we have they have a lot of is