Ambassador apparently because they think shes an easy target, then they got a problem. President obama fires back at republican critics. The controversy over susan rice calling the deadly attack on the u. S. Consulate in benghazi spontaneous has reached a boiling point. After republicans threaten to block her possible nomination for secretary of state. The president thinks we are picking on people, he really does not have any idea of how serious this issue is. If senator mccain and senator graham and others want to go after somebody they should go after me. David petraeus will be on capitol hill tomorrow to testify about the september 11th attacks on the u. S. Consulate in benghazi, libya. We now know the identity of the fbi agent who triggered the investigation into the petraeus affair. Three people have been killed ter rockets were fired into southern israel from gaza. The first israeli deaths after the country killed a hamas military commander yesterday. A popular energy drink, five hour energy is making headlines because of a potential link to more than a dozen deaths. Carrying three babies. Easy feat especially when they are the heaviest trip lets on record. A drunken businessman on the escalators what do you have . A youtube moment. Simply fantastic. All that and that matters. Nancy pelosi asked whether she should consider stepping aside simply to make room for younger members. Lets for a moment honor thanks a legitimate question. An onlynn petition to allow texas withdraw from the United States has more than 100,000 signatures. The signatures are from every state but texas. Welcome to cbs this morning. Im charlie rose in washington. Norah odonnell is in new york. There is a lot to talk about after president obamas First White HouseNews Conference in eight months. It covered everything from the budget crisis to libya, to the David Petraeus scandal. The president himself said that so much has happened lately people forget the election of just a week ago. Nancy cordes covered the News Conference. Shes at the white house. Nancy, good morning. Reporter good morning. The president came to the east room of the white house hoping to push his message on the fiscal cliff and he did but he also got pressed with a number of questions about his handling of Foreign Policy and National Security and one question in particular got a rise out of him about his u. N. Ambassador, susan rice. In his first full press Conference Since march president obama was asked about the criticism of u. N. Ambassador susan rice. His likely choice to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Besmerch her reputation is outrageous. Reporter rice has come under fire for stating that the september attack on an american consulate in libya appeared to be the result of a spontaneous demonstration. As ive said before, she made an appearance at the request of the white house in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provide to her. If senator mccain and senator graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. Reporter and thats just what senator john mccain did a short time later. He has been one of rice fiercest critics. First and foremost the president and commanderinchief is most responsible and i hope the president has no illusions about our view of his responsibility. Reporter the president was asked about the calf. What im not going to do is to extend bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 that we cant afford and according to economists will have the least positive impact on our economy. A modest tax increase on the wealthy is not going to break their backs. They will still be wealthy. One of the most frequent criticisms weve heard over the past few years from members on both sides is you havent done enough to reach out and build relationships. Are there concrete ways that you plan to approach your relationships with congress in a second term . Look, i think theres no doubt i can always do better. I think all of us have responsibilities to see if theres things we can improve on and i dont exempt myself from needing to do some selfreflection and see if i can improve our working relationship. Reporter the president also said in that press conference that hes eager to pursue Immigration Reform and Climate Change policy, but charlie and norah he didnt give a timetable for when we would see any initiatives out of the white house on those issues. Nancy cordes, thank you. Cbs news political reporter John Dickerson is in washington with me. Good morning. Good to be in washington. Up reversed roles here. Youre here and norah is in new york. Your impressions of this press conference. The president struck me when he said hes mindful of second term president s that overreached. Part of it was restrained but it wasnt when he took a whack at senators mccain and graham. He said he was being selfreflective about dealing with congress on one hand hes being selfreflective on the other hand he was so strong with mccain and graham, the way they feel in the white house is essentially mccain and graham are take a political shot at the president by picking on susan rice if they want to pick on anyone they should pick on him or the intelligence chiefs who gave her the intelligence that she was repeating. Theres also some Political Considerations coming from the republican side, mitt romney yesterday had an analysis of the president s victory. This is something i was picking up in the interviews with romney folks right after the election and basically their argument is the president did well with minorities, africanamericans, hispanic voters and young voters because he systematically basically bought them off. With young voters he offered, talked a lot about College Loans and with hispanic voters having younger hispanic voters, the children of Illegal Immigrants give them citizenship and then with africanamerican voters one strategist said it was this lowering of welfare requirements. That argument was essentially the one mitt romney made with donors yesterday in a phone call and arguing basically this is how the president did it. And thats also paul ryan talking about turban vote. Norah . Thats right. And john, it was almost as if romney told supporters that obama won because he gave a chicken in every potato everybody. Exactly. Hes now back to this was essentially the sentiment at the heart of that secretly recorded video that came out during the campaign where he talked about the 47 , the people dependent on the government they would vote for the president because he would hand things out. Romney spent several weeks trying to walk back from that statement. Now he seems to be embracing it again, the idea these voters are so easily manipulated the president merely needed to dangle a thing or two in front of them and they would rush him to at the polls. The reason you would embrace this argument if youre in the romney camp is the alternative argument is that they totally misread the electorate is a more painful one to embrace. One question that comes out of this is this notion that nancy cordes raised, is the president clearly desirous of reaching out with good intentions to republicans, because the susan rice deal suggests that hes ready to fight. On that one he is because hes irritated. Sort of at a personal level as it was explained to me. On the taxes, though, he was both kind of firm but trying to be ambiguous. Clearly the president thinks you have to raise revenue somehow. You can do it one of three ways. Raise taxes on those making more than 250,000. Reduce loopholes or some combination thereof. He basically thinks theres no way to do it without some kind of tax increase but hes trying not to look like a bully about it. John dickerson, thank you very much. There are new details this morning in the camethat forced cia director David Petraeus to resign. The military is taking action against the woman involved in the case and we also know the name of the fbi agent who triggered the investigation, bob orr is here in washington. Bob, good morning. Reporter good morning, charlie and norah. Cbs news now has learned that several months ago tampa socialite jill kelley sent a series of emails to David Petraeus complaining about the upsetting messages that kelley had received from broadwell, petraeus mistress. Kelley took those messages to a friend who was an fbi agent a key first step in exposing the whole scandal. Law enforcement sources now identify that agent as 47yearold Frederick Humphries. They describe humphries as a solid veteran counterterrorism agent. Humphries took kel chips complaint about harassing emails to the tampa cyber squaund a move that triggered the investigation that one covered the affair of broadwell and petraeus and led to the investigation of general john allen. At the white house the president for the first time addressed the scandal and praised petraeus. General petraeus had an extraordinary career. He served this country with great distinction. In iraq, in afghanistan and as head of the cia. Reporter the president was asked whether he was concerned that the fbi investigation which started in late spring was only related to him last week. Am withholding judgment with respect to how the entire process surrounding general petraeus came up. You know, we dont have all of the information yet. Reporter the president also said the investigation found that no National Security information had been compromised. And just this morning while on a trip in Thailand Defense secretary leon panetta said he doesnt see the scandal widening. Im not aware of any others that could be involved in this issue at the present time. Reporter on capitol hill wednesday fbi director Robert Mueller briefed congressional Intelligence Leaders saying the fbi did find that broadwell who had been researching a book on petraeus may have mishandled classified information. Also on wednesday the army suspended broadwell security clearances and the air force base rejected kelleys access to the base. Officials have said emails between kelley and allen contain nothing of a sexual nature but could be embarrassing. Allen has denied any wrongdoing and has not spoken publicly but his attorney did release a statement on his behalf saying he was fully cooperating with the investigations and to the kent theres certain questions on communication with general allen he plans to resolve those questions as quickly as possible. In an interview with charlie rose in washington on wednesday night the head of u. S. Special operations, maintained high praise for his colleagues. My time serving with David Petraeus and john allen are the two finest officers ive ever worked with. Ill leave it at that. Reporter David Petraeus is set to testify before Congress Tomorrow morning. Were told the hearing will be closed. Charlie, norah. Bob orr thank you. John miller is with us. A former fbi assistant director. Lots of interesting stuff to talk about first. This fbi agent number one the whistleblower what are we learning about him . Fred humphries is an interesting figure in the fbi. He is a member of the s. W. A. T. Team. He cut his teeth on the millennium bombing plot when he was a two year agent because he spoke french. But hes also got a medal, the directors award for a shootout at the air force base front gate. On that level hes known as a hard charger. What comes with that, though, according to people i spoke with, a lot of people said theres a bit of an edge to him when he was at Guantanamo Bay as one of the interrogators he left with a lot of bad blood, lodged complaints by fellow agents for the fbi to investigate. He brought in a case that he wasnt assigned to went outside of the congress as reporting that which is just forbidden. Is he going to be in some kind of trouble and we dont know yet. Another big question front page of the wall street journal today is about some tension between the cia director David Petraeus and the head of dni that petraeus just as this stuff was about to break wanted to push back and put out his own timeline in benghazi, a different timeline than had been put out by the white house. What does this suggest . This is a David Petraeus who comes into the cia as a military guy that everybody is looking at, hes not one of us who says i can rise to the challenge, i can defend my own agency here, i can show the troops ill fight for him. He gets in a sandwich between the administration account thats a political football and going out for his agency with both barrels and in the middle of this a sex scandal interrupts that. Whats interesting he wants to do it anyway. He may tomorrow behind closed doors with congress. Final question is about was there a significant amount of classified material on paula broadwells computers. We saw that raid this week. Are we learning more she may have had more material than we thought . Yes. I think maybe more than we thought. The way they got to those materials in that raid she signed a consent form to search her house. She told them what they would find and where to find them. She has a security clearance. Thats not been revoked. But which has been suspended, first step toward revoking it. These are documents most likely in her job she went and downloaded or removed for her dissertation for her petraeus biography. In thailand this morning leon panetta said he has tremendous confidence in general allen. He remains on the job as the top u. S. Commander in afghanistan a and Clarissa Ward is in kabul. Reporter the military here in afghanistan is keeping very tight lipped about this. We put in a request to visit one of the bases here and speak with some of the troops and we were told that that would not be possible and that the soldiers here have no Public Comment on such matters, that they remain focused on third mission. Now we were able to speak to some officers who asked to remain anonymous and their reaction to this scandal were mixed. Some said this does not affect the mission here in afghanistan, that it has no bearings whatsoever on their daytoday operations. But one major wrote this to me. Quote, were taught to live the army values and assure our soldiers down the lowest private live as well. When one of the most senior ranking and wellknown generals of our generation cant do it it makes it tough to make a private do it and then discipline them when they dont. For cbs this morning, Clarissa Ward, kabul. A week of border violence along the gaza strip is escalating this morning. Three israelis were killed when hamas fired dozens of rockets into israel. On israel wednesday assassinated hamass top commander. Alan, good morning. Reporter good morning. Leaders from both the west and arab world are trying to douse the flames of the latest conflict between the israelis and hamas but so far neither sign is willing to call a truce. Rockets sent israeli civilians seeking cover. The rockets are poorly aimed but deadly nonetheless. A family of three died when one struck their home. They had gone on to the roof to watch an aerial display. About the same time as the family died more than 1,000 gaza residents took to the streets. The march the office bury ahmad jabari, killed in an air strike. The funeral was as much a gesture of defiance as it was mourning. His killing was retaliation for a series of rogt attacks launched by gaza by palestinian militants. The mini war was announced on twitter. At 6 22 local time last night the Israeli Defense force tweeted we recommend that no hamas operative show their face above ground. Hamas responded with their own tweet. Our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are. You opened hells gates on yourselves. Minutes later the Israeli Military tweeted a picture of the hamas leader, ahmad jabari eliminated. Overnight a number of rockets were intercepted. Those living within 25 miles of gaza were ordered to stay home. There are dire warnings this morning that the spiral of violence could get out of control leading to wider instability in an already seething region. Hamas claims it has rockets capable of reaching tel aviv and the israelis believe them. Israel had no interest in a war but would deal with what he called a painful blow to hamas. Allen this National Weather report sponsored by big lots. Big savings. Voters just elected dozens of people to congress for the first time. This morning they are on capitol hill ready to serve and with a lot to learn. We all have ideas, our districts have sent us and where are the bathrooms . Well hear from more new members from the most Diverse Group of sent to congress. And the ntsb said all new cars and trucks should have collision avoiding technology. Carmakers say that would add thousands of dollars to the price tag. Well show you how the new system works and how many lives they could save on cbs this morning. This portion of cbs this morning is sponsored by party city. Nobody has more party for less. [ mother ] you cant leave the table till you finish your vegetables. [ clock ticking ] [ male announcer ] theres a better way. V8 vfusion. Vegetable nutrition they need, fruit taste they love. Couldve had a v8. Or. Try kids boxes [ male announcer ] why do more emergency workers everywhere trust duracell. . . Duralock power preserve. Locks in power for up to 10 years in storage. Now. Guaranteed. Duracell with duralock. Trusted everywhere. Hellmanns and holiday leftovers become irresistibly creamy turkey casserole. Real delicious hellmanns. Bring out the hellmanns. Bring out the best. Our familyowned Company Makes daisy. With 100 natural farmfresh cream. No artificial ingredients. No preservatives. And no added hormones. Daisy, dodo a dollop and no added hormones. Capella university understands back from rough economic tim