statement there. that s why you re seeing the top of the statement on your screen. but charlie, do you think it is a possibility that congress will come together to find a solution for this when they didn t do so in the past? it s going to be tremendously difficult. the same reasons that derailed it before in 2012 and beyond when republicans in particular were unable to even bring to a vote the larger bill. and in 2012, killed the d.r.e.a.m. act in the senate, which the house had already passed, which led to this decision by president obama to let these kids stay in. you know, a broader issue that shouldn t be forgotten about all of this, is that this program, for all of the policy merits that its supporters have cited, was one of the legally edgier things that president obama did in terms of pushing the limits of his executive authority. it was something he himself said in march of 2011. he lacked the authority to do. and then when congress didn t act, he went ahead and did it
from firing mueller. well, i think the president sees this as by putting this legislation on the fore, by getting bipartisan votes on it, it s a bad reflection on him. it brings up the option that he may then be considering this. it limits his hand. the president fashions himself as a dealmaker, as a negotiator, and i think he likes to have all options on the table, when someone tries to say, listen, we re going to curb what you can do here, we re going to take something away, we re going to take some of your power. he tends to lash out and not take that very well. i thought your characterization, based on the reporting, of the phone call with bob corker was fascinating to me, because it seemed like the president was attempting to make a fairly substantiative target against the sanctions on the policy merits. and my sense from the reporting that we ve seen throughout his presidency is that s not something that he very often does or very often even seems capable of doing, but in thi
it s a bad reflection on him. it brings up the option that he may then be considering this. it limits his hand. the president fashions himself as a dealmaker, as a negotiator, and i think he likes to have all options on the table, when someone tries to say, listen, we re going to curb what you can do here, we re going to take something away, we re going to take some of your power. he tends to lash out and not take that very well. i thought your characterization, based on the reporting, of the phone call with bob corker was fascinating to me, because it seemed like the president was attempting to make a fairly substantiative target against the sanctions on the policy merits. and my sense from the reporting that we ve seen throughout his presidency is that s not something that he very often does or very often even seems capable of doing, but in this case, he did seem focused enough to apply that argument. well, senior aides at the white house briefed him extensively on this. it was s
you were the chief of staff to then cia director leon panetta. is that a good idea or is this just anger at the cia? it may be a good idea and there s been long discussion about taking some of the functions in the office of director of national intelligence and moving it to other agencies, having more of a forward presence. there could be some benefit to this. but i don t think it should be used to change the subject from this national security crisis that i think is real hi brewing here. but restructuring there are serious intelligence professionals who believe that dni has caused more confusion in the intelligence community than addressed the problems it was designed to solve. addressing this sort of reorganization of the intelligence community i think there s probably a lot of merit to it. the problem is right now it s in the frame of this story about julian assange and the sort of war against the intelligence community so everyone is sort of histrionic about it. if you take
trying to impeach president obama and coming up with some alternative thing that probably isn t going to go anywhere? it s just a bizarre thing to be doing at this point. there s no disagreement on the policy merits. i think they chose this venue because they thought this was the best thing legally. for all i know it might. it s a very interesting technical case. let s remember, it does not emanate from the merits. there was a room which people had a big white board and they were writing down different things, like fast and furious. it could be a number of things, this lawsuit. they decided the lawsuit before is it eta regulations? we re going to go with the aca. john mccain has come out with a plan today in response to the president s plan.