leaders of congress to work toward the package that prevents a tax hike on middle class americans, protects unemployment insurance for 2 million americans. and lays the groundwork for further work on both growth and deficit reduction. that is an achievable goal. as we leigh town for a few days to be with the families for the holidays, i hope it gives everybody perspective. everybody can cool off. everybody can drink some eggnog. obama about an hour ago encouraging lawmakers to go home for the holiday, come back and get a deal done to avoid the fiscal cliff. bring in the panel. steve hayes for weekly standard with us, as well as a.b. stoddard associate editor of the hill. syndicated columnnist charles krauthammer. this was your lightning round topic but we are moving it up so you start us off. are we going to get a deal before the 2nd of january or go tumbling off the cliff? it looks more and more likely that we will go off the
$960 billion there. additional tax increases equal to $600 billion. 2009 level estate tax. multiyear stimulus package starting with at least $50 billion next year alone. permanent increase in the debt ceiling, the debt limit enough to avoid it. in exchange, $400 billion in savings from the medicare and other entitlements to be worked out next year with no guarantees. that didn t go over well. syndicated columnnist charles krauthammer. what is going on here? you know, up until today i didn t think i did think that the president had shown leg on entitlement reform. he did no 2011. when the house speaker failed to reach a grand bargain. you heard signals from dick durbin said on the sunday shows that medicare had to be
with ourselves, all of our neighbors some day we hope. and that is what we ask. that is what we are demanding and that is what will bring an end to the current round of fighting. shannon: the president and israel s ambassador to the u.s. talking what about is at stake for israel here. bring in the panel to talk about it. steve hayes, senior writer for weekly standard. a.b. stoddard associate editor of the hill. and syndicated columnnist charles krauthammer. good to see you. this is heating up. what do you make of it? is it heating up. israel has not response but to respond forcefully as it has. when you have rockets we have seen diminishment in the number of rockets that hit israel after 2008. we then saw a ramping up. so i think they had no choice but to respond because of the immediate problems that that presents. but also, i think it s important is to send a message to the broader region. you have the governments now that are sympathetic in egypt and elsewhere.
available web video. criticizing the transitional government in which the woman can be seen wearing a state department badge and take part in the state department news conference. media watchdog site news busters notes a trio of main stream media personalities apparently wants to move on from the libya scandal. despite murders of the american ambassador and three others there. time magazine joe klein told face the nation viewers this matter has been like the october mirage. it really isn t an issue. new york times foreign affairs columnnist tom friedman on meet the press said, to me this is utterly contrived story. on abc, in this week s host george stephanopoulos argued hasn t the white house been relatively transparent? finally lynn university olest student. jack slodnick about to turn 87 years old will be at tonight s debate. the university s president actually gave up his own
was protected. we need to work the investigation through. within 12 hours of the incident, the intelligence committee received a report that said this is a military or militia style event, which would contradict all of what they were talking about. what is frustrating to me over the weekend you see these u.s., anonymous u.s. officials or intelligence officials leaking timelines. leaking certain pieces of information that was requested by the committee. and all of it seems to put the administration in a good light. bret: stephanie cutter with the obama campaign and the chairman of the house intelligence committee talking about the libya scandal. and what happened in benghazi. we ll start there. since tonight is a foreign policy debate an we ll preview the debate. and bring in our panel. with me in florida, steve hayes for weekly standard. back in washington, we have charles lane, opinion writer for washington post. syndicated columnnist charles krauthammer.