come to a screeching halt. today, president obama asked senate democrats, say, will you do something about this thing? this thing called the filibuster i didn t like either. there are 18 nominees pending and republicans have blocked five of them so far. senator jerry miran of kansas justified the obstruction saying i think in every instance i know of, they ve either been controversial nominees like senator hagel or there s been senators who wanted more information before another secretary was confirmed. hagel controversial? give me a break. the republicans once said they d only filibuster reform nominees under extraordinary circumstances. right wing senators are threatening to filibuster the unnamed nominee for labor secretary. the head of the alcohol, tobacco and firearms and the director of the consumer financial protection bureau. senator elizabeth warren says that filibuster would hurt the agency. i see nothing here but a
do something about this thing? this thing called the filibuster i didn t like either. there are 18 nominees pending and republicans have blocked five of them so far. senator jerry miran of kansas justified the obstruction saying i think in every instance i know of, they ve either been controversial nominees like senator hagel or there s been senators who wanted more information before another secretary was confirmed. hagel controversial? give me a break. the republicans once said they d only filibuster reform nominees under extraordinary circumstances. right wing senators are threatening to filibuster the unnamed nominee for labor secretary. the head of the alcohol, tobacco and firearms and the director of the consumer financial protection bureau. senator elizabeth warren says that filibuster would hurt the agency.
but i do wish that senator hagel secretary of defense hagel had been tougher in rebuking karzai on that issue. karzai wouldn t even hold that traditional joint news conference with the new defense secretary. that was a real slap in my opinion of what s going on and the question is, should the u.s., and if you give me a quick answer, should the u.s. accelerate the withdrawal of those 66,000 troops? they re all supposed to be out by the end of 2014. the pressure is mounting to get them out even more quickly. no. we want afghanistan to be stable not just for the afghans but for our own reasons. we don t want the taliban controlled state. we don t want an al qaeda controlled state. fareed zakaria, thanks very much. fareed s program sunday morning 10:00 a.m. eastern also 1:00 p.m. eastern only here on cnn. special guest this sunday paul wolf witnessowitz the former de secretary, one of the architects of the war in iraq. we are approaching the tenth
hurl an accusation and an insult which is going to break the back of the camel here. or that of the united states. and i think we ve seen over a period of time, his capacity to turn to these kind of rhetorical flourishes, to cover a large part of his anatomy. but i think that we have to take that in the context of his survivability as such. that goes a bit too far under the circumstances, to say we re engaged in collaboration with the taliban in order to occupy his country for its resources, we re there to help stabilize his country and the men and women who have sacrificed their lives for that objective are to be praised and not used cynically in this fashion. in any event, chuck hagel my good friend and former certainly exercised a great deal of discretion, did he not engage in trading insult for insult. but i can say it from this particular platform.
so guns, immigration, everything else was going to be put in jeopardy by these continuing crises over fiscal deadlines, debt ceilings, whatever. and this is an attempt to break through? i think it s an attempt to break through. and quite frankly, other than immigration, which republicans have a real desire to get something done on for their electoral politics. i think the president and the team looked at the fact that if the calculus if this didn t change in some way, it was hard to see anything getting through. not just budget issues, but anything really beyond immigration reform, for the significant time period again that the president has to actually get something done before we really get into the 2014 elections. and once the 2014 elections are here, it starts becoming time, weirdly we ve already started talking about it, who becomes the next president. we re not going to go there today, robert. i m glad. thank you very much. coming up next, the karzai factor. former de