0 call now to request your free decision guide. this easy-to-understand guide will answer some of your questions, and help you find the aarp medicare supplement plan that's right for you. everyone, i'm chris cuomo live in boston part of cnn's continuing coverage of the boston marathon terrorism that happened up here. now, big breaking news for you on the condition of the boston marathon pomibombing suspect, t younger brother listed as fair, his condition. we get that from the official twitter account for the u.s. attorney's office of the massachusetts district. that information, again, suspect right now in custody, is fair. major issue for prosecutors because his ability to communicate, to understand the charges against him critical in moving any prosecutions forward. to understand this from the medical perspective on the phone, dr. sanjay gupta. >> talking about conditions, and we've talked about this quite a bit lately, chris, critical is the most concerning, then serious, we hear he is fair, which from a medical perspective means in many ways that the most concerning part of his medical condition are not as concerning anymore. the vital signs have stabilized at the point where usually patients can be taken out of an intensive care unit, for example. so it's obviously going in the direction that you want from a medical perspective. we know, chris, i'll tell you that in the operation, to put this tube into his trachea, in the neck, was done over the weekend. and now we're, you know, post operative day two or three, and this is sort of exactly what you expect. it's a typical course for him to be listed in fair condition now, chris. >> okay. now, sanjay, help me, put on your legal hat for one second here. the concern is whether or not he's able to understand what we would say in the law what's going on, whether he can speak or not. being in fair condition in the kinds of details you've heard about what's gone on in the initial hearings with law enforcement, with magistrate, does it seem as though he's moving in a direct of being able to assist in his own defense? >> yeah, you know, look, when we talk about speech, and this is putting on a medical legal hat, chris, speech is a general term in the medical sense, meaning that it refers obviously to the spoken word. but also the written word, even gestures, even being able to respond to questions, yes or no. but it also refers to the ability to process and understand any kind of speech. so, it appears that he's able to do both, you know. he's able to understand from, again, i'm hearing the same things that you are, but also able to execute some sort of communication as well. and you know, we heard some of the things that he was able to convey yesterday. so what we want, you know, from a medical standpoint, know that someone's who's hearing, yb understanding and execute something. in a primitive way you ask them to do something initially, hold up two fingers, when someone is able to do, sounds simple, it shows they've heard you understood you and let me point out something else that is very important. the tube that we're talking about that goes into the trachea, which is the windpipe in the neck, ultimately what can happen that can be covered and then you cover that, someone can basically talk. in fact it's called a talking trache at that point. so at that point, you can actually get spoken language as well, chris. >> all right. sanjay, thank you very much. appreciate it. we'll be back with you later on. this is, of course, critical because we're going to discuss today these issues of what type of interrogation was right to be done in this situation, the controversy that's going on in the nation's capital over this. a lot is dependent on whether or not the suspect can speak, can participate in interrogation, that's why monitoring the medical condition is so important. of course the events of the past eight days consume the city where i'm standing. but we're going to start this hour in a city some distance away, again, washington, d.c., because the ideas of looking backward to see whether we knew everything we could about these suspects and looking forward in terms of how we can stay safe are critically important and under discussion right now. in the nation's capital, senators discussing today whether or not this immigrant, who allegedly led his younger brother into a bombing here at the boston marathon, whether that plot, that ultimately claimed four lives and life of one of the bomber, could have been avoided. members of congress want to know what the u.s. government knew or did not know about this now deceased suspect's trip back home in 2012. tracking that for us, in some really heated testimony today, cnn's jim acosta. jim? lay out the information for us. what's being said? what is the controversy? >> reporter: well, chris, you're absolutely right, lawmakers on capitol hill are trying to get to the bottom of what was known about the older suspect who is now dead, tamerlan tsarnaev, and this trip ta hat he took to rusa last year. law makes want to know why is it that tamerlan tsarnaev was able to make this trip in the first place. should he have been stopped before he went overseas? when overseas what did he do? what was he up to when he was over there? some of this is stemming from some of the conflicting stories, quite frankly, chris, from federal officials over tamerlan tsarnaev's status. senator lindsey graham, republican from south carolina, told reporters yesterday that tamerlan was on a no-fly list, that he was on some sort of terror watch list a federal law enforcement official has told cnn that is not the case. and senator charles grassley, graham's republican colleague in the senate, asked secretary janet napolitano from the department of homeland security about the discrepancy earlier this morning. here's bit of that exchange. >> was your department aware of his travels to russia, and if you weren't, the reason? >> the travel in 2012 that you're referring to? yes, the system pinged when he was leaving the united states. by the time he returned, all investigators -- the matter had been closed. >> is it true that his identity document did not match his airline ticket, and if so, why did tsa miss the discrepancy? >> there was a police match there. by the way, the bill will help with this because it requires that passports be electronically readable, as opposed to have being been manually input. it really does a good job of getting human error. >> so there you hear secretary napolitano answering that question from senator grassley. all of this is also important because senator graham said yesterday that tamerlan's trip to russia last year was undetected by the fbi. he say his was told that by a senior fbi official. obviously it sounds as if secretary napolitano is saying his travel was known inside the department of homeland security, which is leading senator grassley and other senators of capitol hill to ask the question, did the right hand know what the left hand was doing if department of homeland security system pinged when he went overseas to russia, why is it that the fbi was not paid aware of this? why is it that the fbi system did not ping when he made that trip over to russia. a lot of questions. there's a senate intelligence committee hearing coming up at 2:30 and then the full house of representatives is expected to get a briefing from fbi officials on all of this later on this afternoon. we'll be covering all of it for you, chris. >> all right, jim, thank you very much. we'll be back to you as you develop more on that. a ping, means an alert to the system. spelling error in some ways would have been the best explanation of this. it could get much more troubling than that. let's bring in law enforcement analyst former fbi assistant director tom fuentes. what isn't important. what when hear this, this is not left about versus right, this is about safely, a legitimate issue. >> i would ask them that question, chris. >> say it again. >> i said -- no, i would ask the senators and the members of the house of representatives what the -- what's the purpose and what they're trying to do. obviously it appears that they're trying to find out if the fbi missed something or if the department of homeland security missed something. >> right. >> how that could have happened or should there have been some kind of stops in place, the term ping that the system was pinged, i don't know of that or how that worked. that would be something within the passport control under dhs. but i note the russian sent a message to the fbi to investigate him in 2011. now and nothing comes of that, there's nothing derogatory found near as we can tell. everything was done that could have been done and the information was sent back to russia. now, now after that investigation, after they've alerted the buss that, he goes to russia. you would think that the point the russian authorities would be keeping an eye on him there, not necessarily notifying anybody in the fbi or intelligence community of the u.s., but they were aware that he traveled to russia and that he's in the area that they're concerned. so in that sense, you would think that they would also note when he departs that he's en route back to the united states. now he's met with people that are suspicious over there, now keep an elevated eye on him. none of that owe consider. there's no further communication as far as i've heard that the trip to russia was noted by the russians or monitors by the russians or relayed back to the u.s. after he came back. >> all right. but, tom, some fair points here, obviously the united states can't be dependent upon russia for its own safety, right? you have do your own leg work. russia did give them the heads up two years ago. >> wait a second. no, sir, there's no u.s. leg work by the fbi on the ground in russia, none. >> right. but you understood from russia that this was someone to look at, you took it seriously, you did it, you find out whether it's a clerical error or whatever but you have a suspect that go back to russia, he's there for an extended period, when he comes back he puts a video online from a known terrorist radical irz and it happens after his trip. smoke equals fire or no? is that not of interest to you? >> i didn't say it's not of interest. i'm saying by the time he comes back, the fbi case is closed and, again, no additional information comes back from the russians to keep an eye on him or he's on his way back to your country. once the fbi case is closed, there is no further monitoring by the fbi of his activity or whether he's going to these jihady websites or becomes increasingly radicalized. he has to come back up on the radar at that point. so i'm just saying, though that the six month his spends in russia obviously were very concerned about that and the u.s. would love to know if he was here, we would try to reconstruct every day that he was, you know, what the activity was. but that can only come from the russians. we don't even know at this point if they were monitoring him during this time. you would ask them if not, why not? you're the ones that raises suspicion in the first place, he's back on your soil, where you're responsible to monitor him, where the u.s. has no authority to conduct investigation, no authority to be in chechnya, it would take their permission to do it. so at that point, this is a matter for the russians to explain what was he doing there and were you aware of it. >> so, i just -- you understand where i'm coming from, tom, right? it's concerning when you hear this, that he's living in your country, you've been alerted to him, it's somewhat confusing whether or not you knew when he left, what pinged, what didn't ping, he comes back, the word that is coming out of the investigation early on is we don't think he was connected to anybody else, we don't know, now it's taken some people in washington to start asking these questioned. it seems like there was a lacking of urgency or something's not working on the system. you're saying it's on russia, is what i'm hearing. >> i'm not saying it's all on russia. i'm saying while he's in the u.s. in 2011, yes it's on the fbi. and if they exhaust all investigative techniques and come up negative, at that time he's not yet radicalized that they know of, no one's making derogatory remarks none of the electronic communications come back suspicious, he's tried to a group ear or oversea. at that point there's so far he can go with it realistically, they do it that, send a message back to rush sla saying give us more, which the russians don't do. the six months in question in russia, there's nothing that the u.s. can do to know what occurred there unless the russians tell us. >> okay. tom, appreciate the perspective. thank you very much. this is your field. always appreciate the understanding. obviously the coin on the other side, when he came back from the trip, posted a video with a known radicalizer, that was in the same region where he was vacationing, very concerning to people. one of the pieces of what we don't understand in the situation we need to know better so things in the future go better in terms of safety and security. that's the obvious interest for everyone involved. new information just this afternoon where the suspects may have learned how to make the pressure cooker bombs. that is going to be what we want to take a look into when we come back after the break. the kyocera torque lets you hear and be heard