Ambassador susan rice focusing on her scripted Television Appearances following the benghazi tragedy today ambassador rice withdrew her name from consideration to be nominated for secretary of state. In an interview with brian williams, rice pointed to the distraction the republican attacks have caused. Today i made the decision that it was the best thing for our country for the American People that i not continue to be considered by the president for nomination as secretary of state because i didnt want to see a confirmation process that was very prolonged very politicized, very distracting and very disruptive because there are so many things we need to get done, as a country. And the first several months of the second term president s agenda is really the opportunity to get the crucial things done. Were talking about comprehensive Immigration Reform balanced deficit reduction, job creation, thats what matters and to the extent that my nomination could have delayed or distracted or deflected or made even some of the priorities impossible to achieve, i didnt want that and i would much prefer to continue doing what im doing which is a job that i love at the united nations. Eliot president obama released a statement expressing his dismay saying in part and i quote. Eliot joining me now is Steve Clemons editor at large of the atlantic and founder of the new America Foundation program and joe cirincione, president of plowing shares fund and a member of Hillary Clintons security advisory board. Thank you both for joining us this evening. Thanks for having us on. Eliot steve let me start with you. After the way the president had reinforced susan rice, not only saying an attack on her is an attack on me at a press conference the scripted applause and his statements about her at a Cabinet Meeting just recently, this seems like such a sharp uturn and you heard me say a few moments ago seems as though the president caved. Am i wrong about that . What do you understand to be going on here . Well, i think it was. I think susan described it accurately. Shes a very capable and competent woman who would have, i think done a great job as secretary of state. That said, it is a distraction. It has been a distraction. When Jonathan Karl asked the president what he thought of john mccain and Lindsey Grahams comments, i actually happened to be hosting the meeting that that happened at, it started a spark and you had a number of senators, john barossi was one Susan Collins who came out in expressing concern. Two things were going on. Ill feelings as a result of the election. Combined with ill feelings about things that susan rice may have said about john mccain in the past combined with benghazi. They felt they were able to make the president pay a price somewhat of a small price in their eyes but still a price and they were tenacious and the president i think youre right. I think he finally caved because this would be a painful thing to have benghazi play out day after day after day while hes trying to deal with fiscal cliff issues. Eliot steve, i think thats exactly right. Those factors all converged. But joe it seems to me the president miscalculated here because they saw the factors were adding fuel to the flames and the senators who were arguing their case, the republican senators, believed very deeply they did not want susan rice but the president escalated the fight in the past number of weeks with his affirmative statements about susan rice with the Cabinet Meeting so for them to have escalated this and then pull back at the height of his perceived capital just won thats what i dont understand as a strategic matter. Clearly, the president feels strongly about susan rice and is a believer in her capabilities and why not. Shes a brilliant phi beta graduate. Hes been with the obama team from the beginning. I was pleased to serve with susan rice on the National Security team in the first obama campaign. She ran a Terrific Campaign effort there. She hasnt made any mistakes as u. N. Ambassador. She has an outstanding record. The president believed in her. Wanted to reward her. He thought he could beat mccain and graham, this travesty of an opposition. In the end it is clear, i dont think this is susans decision alone. The calculation was this was going to be a costly victory. I believe that the president had pushed it in the end, he would have won but it would have been, as the ambassador described, a great distraction. There are other more important issues to pursue. She goes out as a class act. Eliot i think theres no question, some of the critique of her which is that shes tenacious, another way of saying hardedged sometimes, she speaks her mind, another way of saying she can be edgy. They can be stated in different ways. She isnt perhaps the most smoothedged person to deal with. Steve, to come back to benghazi, the spark that lit the us for a. Is there any evidence that youve seen that she did anything wrong anything other than read the script she was given in that context . In other words the facts do support her claim that hey guys, i was told what to say. Not at all. I think it was completely fabricated attack on susan rice. When you think about it, look, im i try to be supportive of the Obama Administration when i can but i have to say that theyre constantly behind when it comes to communications. Because if you remember the iraq invasion and all of the lies and deceits about the wmd issues that were there and what was said, it was flabbergasting to me that the white house didnt return the favor somewhat and put the onus back on the deceit and duplicity weve often heard in National Security issues from the bush cheney administration. They didnt do that. So they sat susan became a tremendous victim. You also had David Petraeus who in my mind, was much more highly complicit in the decisions and in the actual ontheground realities of what the c. I. A. Issues were there on the ground. And i think that that the white house let that play out and left susan out to hang. I think thats not often talked about. We dont talk about the difference between how the white house positioned her and used her but it was unfortunate because she had no blame whatsoever in this. Lets be clear about that. She didnt do anything wrong. There is nothing here whatsoever that should disqualify her from being secretary of state. The president should be able to have the people he wants in his cabinet and he was denied that here by a Political Campaign and it was clear that the senators were not going to let up. But i dont think weve heard the last of susan rice. Shes meeting with the president tomorrow. Eliot thats right. This woman is too good to have her career stop here. I wouldnt be surprised if the president has Something Else in mind for her. And hes in some ways he has to do this. He has to appoint her to another senior position. He cant appear to have caved or lost completely in this battle. Eliot thats my question, joe. Does she stay at the u. N. Perhaps or does she want to move on and who is the winner now . Everybodys presuming and presumptions often are false that john kerry fills the void. Is that a rash assumption on everybodys part . It is not a rash assumption. It was clearly a choice, those are the top two contenders. Senator kerry is terrifically qualified for this position. The president in some way is in a fortuitous position. Like dealing with a lineup for the washington nationals. Youve got a string of great players, just trying to figure out the right batting order. Kerry could be secretary of state. Hagel could become secretary of defense. You could see jack lew the current chief staff move over to the secretary of treasury. Tom donelan move over to be chief of staff and then theres the natural opening for susan rice. She becomes National Security advisor, close to the president. Back in the washington mix and in a position to still help the president execute his policies. Eliot joe, i was with you on everything you said except the baseball metaphor. We in new york forget you have a Baseball Team in washington. A moment transitory time to have a team that can play above. 500. Did john mccain know about this before it was announced publicly . Did white house call him and say okay john, you win this one but we want something back. Were going to give this to you. Be gracious but heres what we expect in terms of a, b or c . What do you think . I have no idea but i doubt it. I think there was a lot of anger and frustration. I happened to be with senator mccain and john udall and Barbara Mikulski and John Barrasso after they did their mugging of susan rice. John was knew he had hit at least a double if not a triple in going after her and basically put the white house back on its heels in the way the president responded to their comments. And i think that this you know, episode has given john mccain a win and i dont think the white house is going to say okay, were going to give you what you want, now you have to play with us on other things. I dont think thats the way this game was played. This was a vicious game and i think there are resentments that will continue for some time. Thats exactly right. Although they plight be feeling like might be feeling like winners, i would not want to be senator mccain or senator graham. There is more to the story that wont go away. These people will pay for this in the long run. Eliot we only have a few seconds left. To turn the tables on the susan rice story, is it possible that what underlies this is the possibility that she knew something about the way her talking points had been edit and thats why shes taken her name out . Any of you think thats possible . I just want to close the door on it. I dont believe it is an issue at all. I dont think that the factual nature of what she articulated with benghazi had anything to do with this. This was pure, rough and raw gladtorial politics that was divorced from reality. They took down someone. Now the president is going to put forward hagel. Theyll have hagel probably hagel, kerry, joe biden as vice president. Barack obama as president. Four great pals from the Senate Foreign relations committee. Eliot the senate is taking over the white house. They all want to live there anyway. Theyre getting in there through their subsidiary positions. Incredibly important positions. Joe, last word to you. You agree there is no blemish on susans record here in terms of what happened on those talking points. No blemish on susans record. Whether there was funny business with the talking points, we dont know. It is clear there is no benghazi story to continue here. Well see this thing put to bed. Well get on with the serious National Security business of this country. Eliot as well we should. Editor at large of the atlantic, Steve Clemons president of ploughshares fund, joe cirincione. Seemingly theyre right back where they started. What Speaker Boehner and president obama need to know about tax rates next on viewpoint. The chill of peppermint. The rich dark chocolate. York peppermint pattie get the sensation. [ male announcer ] red lobsters crabfest ends soon. Hurry in and try five succulent entrees like our tender snow crab paired with savory garlic shrimp. Just 12. 99. Come into red lobster and sea food differently. And introducing 7 lunch choices for just 7. 99. Salads, sandwiches, and more. Eliot on the 18 only 18 days remain until we go over the socalled fiscal cliff and with congress once again heading home after another grueling twoday work week, president obama met once again with Speaker Boehner. While the president keeps talking about revenues, Speaker Boehner focuses on expenditures and it is hard to tell if any progress is being made. The main Sticking Point remains over the issue of tax rates for the wealthy. But according to a recent poll, 76 of the country including 61 of republicans agree that raising tax on the wealthy should be part of any fiscal deliver deal. For more, lets bring in edward kenard, former partner of bain capital and perhaps the most famous private equity firm in history. Also the author of unintended consequences, why everything youve been told about the economy is wrong. And columnist for harpers magazine and author of the age of greed, thank you both for joining me tonight. Look ed, i want to quote from an article you wrote just a couple of days ago that was published on bloomberg. First sentence was the u. S. Is holding a debate critical to its future, whether it is a tax redistribute and consume income that would otherwise be invested. I disagree with that statement. That premise. Please explain why the tradeoff is being made. Do it quickly because i want him to respond. The top 5 pg e of households save about 40 of their income. And so thats really the income that would be invested so when you tax that those households, youre really taxing the households that produce the equity, invest the equity and hold the equity in our economy. That underwrites the risk. That is one of two binding constraints on our economy. Eliot before jeff i give him his moment, the reason i disagree is there are trillions of dollars of capital signature on the sidelines not being allocated and not being allocated for a host of reasons primarily a demand crisis and the government given the deficit, spends it. In consumption and its own investment, that seems to me to be the trigger we need to get the economy going. Jeff, tell me why you disagree with me or ed. I do agree with you eliot. The proof of the pudding is the fact that we did cut tax rates on the rich in the early 2000s under president bush. Theyre the job creators, the investors, we got a bad economic recovery in expansion. Virtually no job creation in that period. The reason is by in large what youre talking about. Cutting tax on the rich is not the way to get growth. Especially when taxes are already low. The way to get growth now is that we need more demand stimulus and the real danger is all this talk about cutting Government Spending can jeopardize the rather tepid Economic Growth we already have next year. Eliot ed, back to you. Crs, Congressional Research service came out with a study that claims that there is, in fact no correlation between lowering taxes and increasing investment. Many studies i have looked at reach the same conclusion. What is your sort of argument that those studies are wrong as a matter of analytical outcome . We dont give out ph. D. S for not finding correlation. First you have to find a correlation and show different factors dont contribute to the correlation. The study was taken down because eliot but then put back up. Also, you have to look over the proper timeframe. The correlations could be over very long timeframes. I believe there is a confounding effect. Higher payoffs for risk taking. That raises the bar for success. That produces Companies Like google and facebook that give us better training. That training leads to more equity because entrepreneurs are successful in creating we can see the difference between the u. S. And europe has produced almost no innovation. We produce almost all of it. We pulled their growth rate up because of the success in the United States. Eliot jeff, ill get to you in ten seconds. If taxes were 100 , people would theoretically sit at home. When were talking about a rise from 35 to 39 they sit at home in europe. Eliot , here we have a database to say what has happened when we move them marginally from 35 to 39. 6 . They were created when the rates were at 39. 6 . I dont see the causation. I think your viewers have to be very aware of the nature of these academic studies. There have been leading economists who have looked at this inside and out. The Congressional Research service, i believe was asked by the republicans to take that down. They cannot find a correlation between higher tax rates and slower Economic Growth. Just let me finish, okay . Clinton raised the tax people like feldstein and barro to do the arithmetic will undermine Economic Growth, be predicted a recession. We did not get a recession. Lets look at the empirical facts. The idea that theres no innovation in europe. This is just some ideological wait, wait. Lets keep the argument on this side of the atlantic. Lets take well disagree. I think youre fundamentally wrong about the causation there ed. Lets put that aside for a minute. Warren buffett agrees, you say put that aside. You dont defer to any person just because hes worth millions of dollars. You would agree we have a demand crisis. I would not agree with it. It is a symptom not a cause. I just want to say one thing in the 1990s. We commercialized the internet like commercializing the telephone. Of course our economy grew faster independent of a tax rate. That will have a much bigger effect. The nasdaq went from 80000 to 4,500. There was an enormous amount. Europe had access to the same technology and had a similarly educated work force and they grew at less than half our rate. Eliot i want to take something you say because you said you made the same point in your article. I circled it. As a result, entrepreneurs individual tax rates mattered much less to growth then than they do today. The then youre referring to was the 1950s because we built the interstate highway system and did other things that like the internet were infrastructure projects. But thats what we want government to do now. And so wait, wait. The great deficit in america is not the fiscal deficit. The great deficit in america is Public Investment which we used to do as a matter of course. It was a battle even back