america and other news outlets were pursuing an interview, we didn t know quite why. in january you reported the payoff story. how were you able to nail that story down? well, we had initially before the election reported that the american media which owns t the national enquirer caid karen mcduringal to not speak about her alleged affair and stormy daniels was considering talking but didn t. we considered who might have paid her after the election and last year my colleague said we have to find out who paid stormy so we kept asking around, poking around and eventually heard michael cohen had been the one to pay her and we needed to nail that down and scrapped over the last few months to be able to figure it out. so that story and the follow-up story is now they were partly dependent on anonymous or confidential sources meaning you knew who they were but we don t know who they are. was that important?
trillionplan to cut the deficit. reduce spending in iraq and afghanistan and higher taxes on the wealthiest american. republican leaders promptly dismissed it calling the plan class warfare. does the president s plan have a chance? joining me is gene sperling director of the national economic council. thank you for joining me. the president announced today he ll go after the rich. the republicans say that is a form of class warfare. the president says it s math. but the reality is it is class warfare. the rich are a class and he s going after them. it s the opposite. the president is asking for balance, for shared sacrifice. he s asking for everybody to contribute and getting our long-term deficit down. he wants a plan that will be strong and powerful. the american jobs act. but we come to fiscal discipline, we all have to be in this together. when the president put out as a principle that those who make over a million or 10 million shouldn t be paying lower taxes than midd