conservatives. last night, he went on fox, his former employer, to apologize. >> when i make a mistake, and i'm going to on occasion, i want to stand up and share with the american people that was a mistake because that way we can have an honest conversation. >> the washington post's dan balls joins us now for more on newt's botched campaign rollout. let's have an honest conversation. what was he thinking? clearly to me this was no accident. he came on "meet the press," no gotcha questions, he was asked straightforward questions by david gregory and clearly seemed to be wanting to move himself more toward the middle. >> it is inexplicable. this was not a gotcha question. he's called it a baloney hypothetical question, which certainly was not. it was a totally fair and very straightforward question that david asked him. and his answer harkened back to the newt gingrich that many people wonder about his discipline. he used language that was inflammatory when there was no particular reason to do so. there were many other ways to answer that question and convey the same thing that he wanted to convey, which i think was we have to be careful about trying to go too fast and too large and we need to make sure we bring the american people along and we have to have a conversation about it. but instead, he declared it right wing social engineering and immediately enflamed the whole right side of his party. >> when you have rush limbaugh, charles crowd heimer, bill bennett, though ben it apparently was then advising newt he needed to go on fox and explain himself a bit more and he did with greta van susteren who just tried to pin him down, one thing he would not answer, her questions about the tiffany bill. according to calista, his spouse, his wife's financial disclosure forms to congress, when she was a congressional staffer, in 2005 and 2006 they ran up bills of between $250,000 and $500,000 at tiffany's. an unpaid liability ascribed to her spouse, newt gingrich. he wouldn't explain that. let's play a little bit of that exchange. >> i'm not commenting on stuff like that. i am perfectly happy to talk about what we need to do for america and what we need to do to help americans, but i frankly don't want to play the gotcha games in washington. >> he said it would be playing trivial pursuit. is this a political issue or is this gotcha? >> well, it is not a political issue on the scale, his comments about paul ryan's plans certainly are. >> does it create an image problem for him? >> it does create an image problem for him. i don't know whether he'll be forced to answer the questions about whether he's paid that bill off or what it was for. but nonenonetheless, it adds to image of newt gingrich as somebody who people are going to have a lot more questions about and given his history, i think all of these kinds of problems create a bigger obstacle for him, even though he had major obstacles anyway than he had a week ago. >> dan balls, it gets more and more interesting. thank you very much, dan. congressman paul ryan will be david gregory's exclusive guest on "meet the press" this sunday. check your local listings. when a great booking. turning to the deficit, another big obstacle to finding a bipartisan compromise. tom coburn is pulling out of the gang of six negotiations. he says the group is at a stand still over medicare, medicaid and there is no point in talking in circles. kelly o'donnell is nbc news capitol hill correspondent. kelly, we hear they'll be meeting today, the five remaining gang of six. without six, how do they come up with a 50/50 bipartisan solution that has any kind of legs? >> that's the big challenge because the essence of this group was to have an even handed, well respected group of senators who could come up with a deal and then sell their colleagues on it. and now there is an important leg of the stool missing because coburn has backed out. he says he's taking a break and would like to see the group go forward. but all the optics of this suggest he has bailed on this because they couldn't get a deal. a lot of frustration. certainly democrats and democratic aids have been saying that senator coburn had issues about entitlement programs he was bringing into the conversation later. and that really caused an impasse. it is really a matter of taxes versus entitlements as one aide described it and trying to get there. what happens next? they described today's immedime as a pivotal gathering of the five remaining. i'll call it a group of six minus one, to see where they can go forward. and they have been a bit eclipsed by what was going on with what we're calling the biden commission, the vice president appointed to try to broker a deal on the debt ceiling. this group had a much bigger agenda to try and find a long-term set of solutions for the country's debt. so it is a blow to that. they have worked sometimes three and four hours in meetings, multiple times a week, going back to december. and one of the questions will be will they bring forward what they have been working on even if it is a work in progress if the group itself can't continue. >> and as recently as a couple of weeks ago, senator durbin was saying that there were high hopes. last night, senate democrats lost three of their own from energy states from oil states. mary landrieu and mark begich from alaska and ben nelson from nebraska. their efforts to cut oil subsidies failed. >> those were not surprises. those democrats had been very clear that they would not be joining in on the democrats idea and the president's idea that the subsidies should go away with the money directed to the debt. today there is an ongoing debate led by republicans who are kind of dominating the floor now for their development to expand oil production. neither of these is expected to really go anywhere. it is the outlines of, again, an argument about how to approach gas prices and what to do with the debt. it is a hot button issue, it is what voters are concerned about, what they're living with in the real world and senators are trying to get some piece of this debate, but not clear that anything will really be resolved. >> thank you so much, kelly o., on the hill. now to the devastating floods along the mississippi river. the river is expected to crest today at a record 57 1/2 feet, actually tomorrow in the city of vicksburg, mississippi. in louisiana, the waters are moving more slowly than many had thought. and may not reach the heights first predicted. nbc's chief environmental affairs correspondent anne thompson is in butte, louisiana. butte larose, louisiana. where are you today? >> butte larose. a good question, andrea. i'm in butte larose. >> tell us the situation there and more broadly how this whole army corps of engineer plan is working for the region. >> well, let me -- first of all, i am on the banks of the atchafalaya river here in butte larose. while the water is not moving as fast as the army corps of engineers predicted, the waters are still rising and the waters are expected to get very high here. we were here in butte larose last week and you could still see the flood gauge that was attached to one of the piers -- one of the poles in the river here. and it topped out at 20 feet. that flood gauge is now submerged. the national weather service says the water level here is about 21 feet and they anticipate that it could get up to maybe 25 feet, 27 feet. not -- they don't think it will get as high as 29 feet as had been predicted. still, it is a whole lot of water. and officials here are working with residents to make sure that they are being vigilant, even though the flooding forecasts have diminished a little bit. because they want people to protect their homes and give themselves plenty of time to get to higher ground. in fact, we drove through this little community today and i can tell you, it just feels like a ghost town. there are very few people here. most of the homes are sandbag and locked up as people try to find a safe location. >> anne thompson in butte larose, louisiana. thank you very much for that report. we want to go to the pentagon where admiral mike mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs is talking about the troubled relationship with pakistan. let's listen. >> so from my perspective, that investment brought us to this position which i think we need to leverage to sustain the relationship. not just at my level or with the military, but quite frankly between the two countryies. i've seen no evidence after -- since the bin laden raid, that indicates that the top leadership knew bin laden was there. >> i can understand congress' frustration and i think senator kerry was pretty explicit in his meetings in pakistan that the circumstances have led to a lot of -- a lot of skepticism on the hill. and that u.s. assistance to pakistan is now more controversial than it was before. that said, i think we have to proceed with some caution. we do have significant interests in pakistan. i think that my own view would be there is -- we need to continue the assistance that we have provided, that benefits the pakistani people. coalition support funds are actually a reimbursement for services rendered for things they have actually done. we have a very rigorous review process for those claims by the pakistanis. they're reviewed by isaf and reviewed by our embassy. they're reviewed at centcom and up here. generally we do not pay 100% based on their claims. but it is a serious process. but i think -- i think we do need to be cognizant of the concerns on the hill and frankly i think the pakistanis need to be as well. but that said, we do have interests in common and we do need to try and move forward. >> mr. secretary, senator kerry went to islamabad and claims that he pressed the pakistanis on pursuing the leadership of the taliban that has taken safe haven in pakistan, primarily mullah omar and also the haqqani network. and you, yourself, have made it a point to do as much as you could to provide protection to our american forces. but many of the attacks that launched against americans are conducted from or launched from those safe havens in afghanistan. so can you understand the frustration, not only of the military, but the american people at the apparent reluctance of the pakistanis to go after the leadership that had safe haven there for nearly ten years. >> of course i share that frustration. i understand that frustration. i share it. i think we have an opportunity here, the pakistanis and i would like to invite the chairman to comment. the pakistani over the last couple of weeks have expressed the view that they are willing to go after some of these people. and that we should not repeat the bin laden operation because we -- they will undertake this themselves. i think this provides us an opportunity and i think we ought to take them up on that. and it also offers them an opportunity to address this frustration and the skepticism that i referred to. >> this is certainly not the first time this issue has been raised with the pakistani leadership. it has been something that has been raised over the course of my engagement for the last couple of year. i think they do understand it is a priority. and it is, i would just re-emphasize what the secretary said, it is their desire now to do this themselves and i think they certainly understand the importance of it. all of that said, they also had some internal priorities as this terrorist threat has grown internally to them. and their capacity in some regards, they have prioritized internally to go after ttp and others, but they know this is a priority for us. and i think we have clearly, as senator kerry did, secretary just said we all need to make sure that they understand very clearly that this priority isn't going to go away and these safe havens, the safe havens for these leaders have to be eliminated. >> if i could follow up, you say they understand, but have they made a commitment to the u.s. to pursue these -- these leadership members of the taliban? >> i'll be specific about haqqani, because my engagement with general over the year, he has committed to that. i think one of the issues that is just a challenge for us is our clock moves a lot faster than his clock. that has been the case so far and i think it will be the case in the future. i'm not trying to give him an excuse, but matching the clock has been pretty difficult. >> you were there last month in pakistan, you talked about the strain, the relationship between the isi and haqqani has on the u.s. relationship with pakistan. is it time to say to the pakistanis, clearly you have a relationship with him, turn him over to the united states? is it time to do that? >> i think my comments from a month ago still stand from that perspective. i was very clear about the priority for the leadership in particular with respect to the haqqani network and the need to get at that. i wouldn't change that. >> you turn over haqqani, we're going to tie that to our aid to pakistan. is that the right thing to do? >> i think our approach needs to continue to be with pakistan, a very comprehensive approach across the totality of government. picking an individual string that says this is how we're going to do it, that isn't going to answer the mail. it has to be a comprehensive approach. the secretary talked about the resources which are considerable and certainly that's -- it's understandable there would be those that would look at that. and i understand that. and i think quite frankly the pakistani leadership, military leadership in particular would understand that. >> also following up what you said, you said you don't think the top leadership in pakistan knew bin laden was there. do you presume that someone in the isi or the army knew he was there in supporting him? >> as i said, i have seen no evidence that the top leadership -- >> what about the rest of -- >> i think there is -- with the evaluation of the sensitive site material and exploitation that is going on, it is going to take us a while to see if there is anything else. >> the way i would put it is, first of all, i would echo exactly what the chairman said. i have seen no evidence at all that the senior leadership knew in fact, i've seen some evidence to the contrary. but and we have no evidence yet with respect to anybody else. my supposition is somebody knew. >> can you give public a sense of what one or two missions will definitely be review ed coined neo operations. with you give us one or two examples of some of the missions? >> let me give you an example of the -- of the hardest bin, the third bin in terms of the strategic alternatives. we have had the -- it has been our strategy for many years now to be able to fight two regional conflicts simultaneously. if you were to tell yourself the likelihood of having two such fights simultaneously is low, and you could therefore plan to fight sequentially, but the other side of that is the risk involved if you're wrong. and the other guys always have a vote. that's the kind of strategy and risk that we want to surface for the president and for the congress. >> this breaking news as the pentagon continues its briefing. the president has signed an order. we have the order now. this is the executive order imposing sanctions on syria, sanctions specifically on president assad and other top leaders. the vice president, the prime minister, all because of the broug brutal crackdown against demonstrators in syria. more will come in the president's speech tomorrow. the president is making his middle east speech, talking about the revolutions that have been sweeping -- sbeepi isweepi middle east and northern africa. back to politics, the roll of the political spouse has changed dramatically over the past few decades. some habits diehard. still today, a candidate's wife or husband is expected to drop everything including their own career to look and play the part. connie schultz is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of "and his lovely wife," a memoir from the woman beside the man. she happens to be married to ohio democratic senator sherrod brown. you know of what you write. how complicated is it? we have seen over in the last 24 hours, of course, the pretty terrible embarrassing example of what happened with maria shriver and armed schwarzenegger. it was through shriver's intervention early on, vouching for him when he was first accused of groping that he -- many people feel he got elected. connie schultz has been joining us from ohio. we'll try to get that -- we'll try to get her back to us. we will be back with you in just a moment. but up next, searching out -- sending out a search party, top republicans looking for presidential alternatives. a major milestone for recovering congresswoman gabby giffords. later, education nation, why some people are asking is a college education worth the money? ♪ [ male announcer ] in 2011, at&t is at work, building up our wireless network all across america. we're adding new cell sites... increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we're covering more people in more places than ever before in an effort to give you the best network possible. at&t. rethink possible. underwhelmed by a presumed front run, mitt romney, many establishment republicans are staying uncommitted, engaged in a public search for an alternative, as they say in trying to find a candidate. alex burns joins us now. what is your reporting telling you about mitch daniels, whether or not he'll do it and the search for trying to get chris christie to get in the race? >> sure. governor daniels just yesterday said he is getting close to a decision. and news comes today he's headed to tennessee next month to headline a big fund-raising dinner for the state party. he's acting a little more like a candidate than he was a couple of weeks ago when the state legislature was in session but remains a question mark. chris christie, who wyou also mentioned, insists he won't run this time. but he doesn't seem to have 100% shut the door from folks from iowa who are coming to trenten to meet with him later this month. >> what about jon huntsman. there is a report he'll open his campaign headquarters in orlando, florida, his wife's home, but florida, florida, florida, is such a critical state. >> it sure is. not just in the general election this time around. florida republicans have -- are determined to go fifth in the primary process. so for a candidate like huntsman, who does very, very well in new hampshire, scoring another win in florida, it is sort of a critical part of that strategy. that's a big part of the reason it would seem he would choose florida as a place to base his campaign. >> does that sort of pass the laugh test? there is no connection other than his wife's family between jon huntsman from utah and florida. >> well -- >> it seems too opportunistic. >> this is one of the challenges for huntsman in general. he's not basing his campaign in utah. he personally is now liveing in washington, d.c. his kwcampaign was looking at charlotte. for a candidate who is a blank slate for republicans, that's not a bad metaphor. >> thank you very much. up next, t. boone pickens with a plan for america's energy future. a wave of revolution sweeps the middle east and north africa, what is at stake for israel? an advanced look at president obama's long awaited middle east policy speech coming up next. 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