The beauty of our swaying palms. And the magic of a people. And a place like nowhere else on earth. Behold. The islands of the bahamas. Time toure. Dont you just love a bargain. That is a new england reference. There week the president is pushing for a grand bargain but some in his party think theyre about to get a raw deal. It is not just the budget. The president is pushing the big agenda on guns, immigration, taxes, yada, yada, yada. Thats a seinfeld reference. Of course. Weve got our special treat in the guest spot this hour. The former defense secretary William Cohen on the unique challenges to the pentagon. Im krystal ball. Chug hagel witnessed those changes firsthand. Im defending bill clinton over the defense of marriage act. A whole new week of the cycle is in your life starting now. Grand bargain. Budget battle. Spending showdown. Get ready to hear those terms thrown around a lot this week in washington. Senate demes are working on their first budget in four years. Yeah. You heard that right. It has been four years since the Senate Passed a budget. In the house, republican paul ry ryan. Where have i heard that name . With are appealing obama care, it is dead on arrival. What is his name . Willard mitt romney . And the last time i cheg, romney and ryan are not in the white house. Im kidding. I didnt have to check. This time president obama is skipping the oneonone budget negotiations that have failed before. Instead, going straight to the members themselves. He is meeting this week with the entire republican and democratic caucuses from both the house and the senate. Opening to find a grand bargain on taxes. Spending cuts and entitlement reform with the pressure of the full sequester pressing down on them. Will we finally see a grand bargain or any bargain from washington . The senior congressional reporter for politico. If the president gives in once again, on entitlement, will the dems push him . Will they be upset . Will they riot . Revolt . Or will they say, hey, our constituents arent going to press us like republican constituents would press their lawmaker so theyll be able to survive that. I think the democrats will be split on this issue. You will see a fair am of re state democrats. Some of the more moderate democrats. Some up for election, be open and want to push the idea of a grand bargain that would include cuts to entitlement, potentially higher revenues but there will be a significant back lash from folks on the left. A lot of liberals in both the house and the democratic caucuses who are not comfortable with what the president is proposing so far. Thing like raising the medicare eligibility age, the rate of inflation so that would affect Social Security benefits. Medicare means testing. Those are measures that dont go far enough for republicans in order to even entertain the idea of revenues. If the president goes even further to cut entitlements, in order to win some republican support on taxes, youre going to see a lot of forecast on the left unhappy about this. The president has a very tough sell. Not just with republicans but his own party. Well, im a little confused on that point in material of what it the republicans are looking for. If we accept this whole idea that we need a grand bargain, thats a whole other discussion whether we really do need a grand bargain. If we accept that idea, obama has actually put on paper proposals for entitlement reform. He put on paper in the run up to sequester this whole thing called cpi. It is a benefits reduction to Social Security. When you look back to 2011 with the whole debt sealing drama, they were talking about raising the medicare eligibility age. What is it that republicans are for him to say that he hasnt said yet or put on paper that he hasnt put on paper yet . Those changes are not nearly as far as things that are included in the ryan budget. Which will be unveiled tomorrow. That would include things that would change the way this medicare has dwelt folks 55 and un. Are they looking for, i mean, if the bottom line for republicans is the privatization, basically the privatization, the voucherization of medicare, thats a nonstarter from the beginning. Is that what theyre expecting . I think they want to see the president move further in that direction than he has so far. You know, a lot of these, this will be very tricky for republicans to deal with because on the one hand, theyre saying very firmly that they are not going to accept any more taxes. That is something that both Mitch Mcconnell and john boehner has said. If the president moves even further in that direction, even further toward paul ryan, will they give anything on taxes from some of the more powerful members of the republican conference . Right now there is no indication they will. I think it will be very, very hard in order to get a grand bargain, despite all this renewed optimism in washington. I agree with you. If the president has to go further on entitlements than he has already signaled he is willing to go, i dont think it can happen. Talk about Mitch Mcconnells role in all of this. The president obviously had dinner with 12 republican senators last week. The bottom line is there will have to be some deal with leadership, meanwhile, Mitch Mcconnell is up for reelection. He is facing pressure from the left and the right. He is concerned about shoring up his right flank. Does that make things more complicated in terms of striking a deal . I think that youve seen Mitch Mcconnell take an increasingly tough line against taxes. He was the architect of the fiscal cliff deal with Vice President joe biden and that included tax increases for upper income taxpayers as well as ending the Social Security pay roll tax cut. Since then, he said no new taxes. Of course as you mentioned, that he is worried about a possible primary challenge ahead of 2014. His tough line is going to be something that will be difficult to navigate around from the white houses perspective. I talked to a bunch of the republican senators last week who met with the president. They said well talk with the president. Were lane to talk with the president. This does come down to Mitch Mcconnell to the white house. This is something the leadership needs to negotiate with the president. So mcconnells role at the end of the day will be very central to these negotiations. Even if the white house right now seem to be trying to circumvent the leadership in washington. Also your colleague, isaac has a piece up about obamas swing to the far left post reelection and how thats making it difficult for certain democrats in the house in districts that romney won to run again, or manning running again as moderate democrats. Whether for the purpose of increasing political accord or political practicing mattism in terms of these crises out, just to make a 2014 house run easier, do you think obama might have misjudged the landscape . And maybe should have swung back toward the center instead of toward the left to get more done . I think when you see the issues of gun control, really start to move. Youre going to see a lot of those folks in moderates in both the house and the senate going to be a little squeamish about moving forward on some of these issues. Folk even in the senate. You have moderate Democratic Senators from alaska, from arkansas, from louisiana, from north carolina, who are a little nervous about embracing the full extent of the president s gun control package or even a narrow portion of it. On those issues, it will be difficult. On the immigration issue it will be difficult. When we Start Talking about the pathway to citizenship for the nations 11 million illegal immigran immigrants, when that starts moving forward, thats something the president will have to monitor closely. If he does get some republican buyin like on immigration, that will help give some of those moderate democrats coverage. I think the flip side is that the idea of obama moving farther to the left in the second material. When you had this sort of moment of truth on the fiscal cliff around new years, he settled for a deal without really testing his leverage on that. And one of the things that he settled for was pushing the sequester back a few months, decoupling that from the fiscal cliff deal. Setting up this deadline that now has come and gone and now were dealing with the sequester in the only way the white house sees out of that is the sixmonth process to finally get to a grand bargain. Are you picking up on any crumbling among democrats that maybe obama should have pushed harder on the fiscal cliff to get this all resolved back then closer to the election when he had more leverage . I think there were some democrats who are not happy with the way the white house eventually cut the deal, including on the sequester. I think they felt they could have extended the sequester for at least a year. Put up that fight for a year. Instead, there was a twomonth delay as you mentioned that coincided with some of these other spending fights that they feel they dont have as much lenk on. As well as some saying, hey, look, this outreach could have happened in december. We could have dealt with this back then. Get rid of this deficit issue. At least temporarily while we work on these other big ticket items. That secondguessing will certainly intensify if things start to break down. And if these budget debates eventually imperil the rest of the second term general including gun control and immigration. When you say obama moved to the far left, steve, when you talk about immigration, guns, marriage equality, tax fairness, these are issues that most people agree with the president on his position. So is it really moving to the far left when he is actually dealing with positions that most people agree with . Isnt that more moderate actually . Take it up with s. C. Take it up with democrats who are talking about how worried they are. Always happy to see you in the a block. Another green on blue attack. Afghanistan leaves americans dead. And karzai is publicly criticizing us . What is his problem . What are we still doing there . The cycle moves on. [ thunder crashes ] [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. And that their Homeowners Insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesnt. Stop pretending. 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Is actually working on the taliban to destabilize the country, to justify our continued presence there. Newly named defense chief chuck hagel left afghanistan after canceling a joint News Conference last night. He met with karzai privately. Must have been quite an interesting meeting. Lets spin, guys. This was sort of an embarrassing week for everyone involved. Chuck hagel goes to afghanistan, his first big overseas mission. It is in the wake of an attack that happened earlier. There is another attack today. We canceled a meeting with karzai because of security fears. Karzai is out telling people we canceled for a completely different reason. And karzai has been publicly throwing stones over the past few weeks. At us. And this latest implication that we have somehow provoked these attacks in order to continue our presence there seems really irrational. But also, but also kind of i guess, calculated. To that, our general told reporters in kabul, we fought too hard over the past 12 years. Weve shed too much blood over the past 12 years. Weve done too much to help the Afghan Security forces grow over the last 12 years to think that violence and instability would be to our advantage. Right. Exactly. Nonetheless, karzai seems to have always been the devil we know. So weve worked with him, coddled him, given him cover. It seem like despite over the past few week, and ratcheting up the rhetoric, he has accused u. S. Special ops in wardak of murder and abuse. He cancel the handover of the afghan detention center. Now chuck hagel says its cool. I get it. I was a politician once too. I understand the pressure he is under. He may be right but this is not what we need to be doing with karzai. It is time especially as were leaving and well have fewer interests there, it is time for us to say, look, you have not been helpful in securing your border. You have not been working with us in good faith. You are not a good actor. I think this is part of the problem weve had in afghanistan from the beginning. Karzai is not a good partner corrupt, et cetera. On the other side you have pakistan, also not a good partner. One of the thing that struck me having this, that karzai said, we were partnering with the taliban to create instability in the country. I mean, that is patently insane. And yet you have to think that since he is saying it, some portion of the afghan public believes that. And it underscores how different their view of us and their view of reality is from what actually is true. Which is a scary thing. And the truth is, this is political for karzai. He is trying to have it both ways. On the one has not, the big thing being negotiated is what our true presence will be after 2014. Karzai wants there to be a large troop presence but he cant seem domestically like he wants their to be a large American Press after 2014. He is saying one thing to his public, things that are clearly crazy. Saying another thing to us and this is where we end up. Part of why he wants there to be a large troop presence and why he is in such a tough spot, he is worried for his own life. Even with the fewer american and nato troops there, the more likely that he personally will be killed and probably end up like musharraf, living in london after he is no longer president. He will fear for his life every single day. Part of why the reality in afghanistan is so different than we want it to be, than we understand reality to be. Most of them, shocking statistic, dont know that 9 11 happened. This is a statistic that our producer betsy dragged up for us today. 92 of men between 15 and 30 who live in the provinces where obama sent the surge troops, did not know about 9 11. Had never heard of it. So obviously, if theyre living in this world that 9 11 does not exist and all these american soldiers are coming in, maybe some bombs are dropping from the sky. Theyre like, why is this happening . What is going on . They dont know whats going on. They dont understand. We say this like were shocked. Give me an example of any time in history when a foreign power has gone into afghanistan and built a government . It hasnt happen. It doesnt happen. A problem that theyve never heard of 9 11 . Not wanting it maybe. It doesnt shock me. If you consider what the average afghans life is like. Especially in these real remote rural areas. It doesnt shock me that they would be be aware of something in the United States, obviously everybody has heard of it. In the western World Everybody has heard of it. But it underscores why no foreign power has been able to go in there and build a government. One person in the house voted against the invasion and she was vilified 11 years ago. It was the necessary war. 12 years ago when that happened. If we had that vote today it would be a little different. What hagel that, i found it to be a completely irrational explanation for what karzai is doing. It may be distasteful for to us hear what he is saying or look at the actions he is taking or not taking, but he is acting as what he is. As he politician in afghanistan who as you say is worried about his personal survival and his political survival and his political relevance. The lesson we ought to draw, if he is not shaping Public Opinion in afghanistan as much as reflecting it which is what politicians generally do, what does that tell you about Public Opinion in afghanistan . What does that tell but the taliban gets its power from railing against the american okay paying of afghanistan. And so the longer the u. S. Todays there, it almost seems, obviously we are not partnered with the taliban in any way. But we have to ask ourselves, as we look at this 2014 withdrawal, how much is our presence actually, not intentionally but helping the taliban. I get karzais political posturing. I get why it has been useful for his own selfpreservation. I just dont see the evidence of it being good for his people. Lets not forget that should be part of the calculation, too. All right. As skrait Hillary Clinton faced the challenges of afghanistan firsthand, up next, life on the road with hillary. Carfirmation. Only hertz gives you a carfirmation. Hey, this is challenger. Ill be waiting for you in stall 5. It confirms your reservation and the location your car is in, the moment you land. Its just another way youll be traveling at the speed of hertz. Sure. Cake or pie . Pie. Apple or cherry . Cherry. Oil or cream . Oil or cream . Cream. [ male announcer ] the sound of reddiwip is the sound of joy. The middle of this special moment and i need to run off to the bathroom. 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