Michelle Obama takes the “first lady of late night” title. By our calculation, FLOTUS has appeared on late night shows 14 times since President Obama took office in 2009. She’ll add one more to the count Thursday night with an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”
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Former State Department senior advisor Joshua Walker analyzes the President’s national security and foreign policies. Photo: Getty Images.
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President Barack Obama said former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden’s “sensational” revelations of classified spying programs could impact U.S. operations for years to come. Photo: Getty Images.
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Bells tolled 26 times in Newtown, Conn., on Saturday — once for each of the victims who died a year ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in a brutal, senseless massacre carried by disturbed loner Adam Lanza.The bells rang began sounding at St. Rose of Lima Church in Newtown beginning at 9:30 a.m.
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Idris Elba probably didn’t expect Pres. Barack Obama to talk about his sex appeal when he went to the White House last week for a screening of his awards season favorite drama Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom . “He told everyone in the screening room Idris Elba couldn’t sit down because all the ladies were all over him. Elba said “it was an honor” to have Obama ask to see the movie. “Barack is really fond of Mr. Mandela so he was really thrilled to have us there to present our film and I felt very special about doing that,” he said.
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A White House official said that Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and other senior U.S. national security officials will hold conference calls about Syria with the Senate Democratic Caucus as well as the Senate Republican Conference. The calls, which will be unclassified, are part of “the Administration’s consultations regarding the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons in Syria on August 21,” the official said.
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President Barack Obama addresses the National Governors Association in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama addresses the National Governors Association in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal listens as National Governors Association Chairman, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, speaks with reporters outside the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, accompanied by White House press secretary Jay Carney, briefs reporters on the sequester, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing an end of the week deadline, President Barack Obama said Monday that Congress can avert sweeping across-the-board cuts with “just a little bit of compromise,” as he sought to stick lawmakers with the blame if the budget ax falls.
Speaking to the nation’s governors, Obama acknowledged that the impact of the $ 85 billion in cuts may not be felt immediately. But he also said the uncertainty already is impacting the economy, as the Pentagon and other agencies get ready to furlough employees.
“At some point we’ve got to do some governing,” Obama said. “And certainly what we can’t do is keep careening from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis.”
Despite Obama’s urgent rhetoric, there is no indication that the White House and Congress were negotiating a deal to avoid cuts by Friday’s deadline. White House press secretary Jay Carney said he had no new telephone calls to announce since the president’s conversations with Republican congressional leaders last week. “We will continue to engage with Congress this week,” Carney said.
Obama wants to offset the so-called sequester through a combination of targeted spending cuts and revenue increases, but Republicans oppose any plan that would include tax hikes.
Emerging from a closed-door meeting with Obama, governors said the president had assured the administration is pursuing solutions, but didn’t offer assurances that officials would find a way ahead out ahead of the deadline.
The $ 85 billion budget-cutting mechanism could affect everything from commercial flights to classrooms to meat inspections. Domestic and defense spending alike would be trimmed, leading to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of government workers and contractors.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the cuts would harm the readiness of U.S. fighting forces. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said travelers could see delayed flights. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said 70,000 fewer children from low-income families would have access to Head Start programs. And furloughed meat inspectors could leave plants idled.
The White House continued laying out in stark terms what the cuts would mean for government services, dispatching Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to warn of the implications for critical security functions.
“I don’t think we can maintain the same level of security at all places around the country with sequester as without sequester,” said Napolitano, adding that the impact would be “‘like a rolling ball. It will keep growing.”
Despite the Friday deadline, there are no serious negotiations happening between the White House and Congress. Obama is focused instead are trying to rally public support for his stance in the debate by warning Americans of the dire consequences of the across-the-board cuts.
The president told the governors that cuts would “”slow our economy, eliminate good jobs, and leave a lot of folks who are already pretty thinly stretched scrambling to figure out what to do.”
The spending cuts have frustrated governors attending the National Governors Association meeting in Washington. They contend it has created widespread uncertainty in the economy and hampered economic recovery in their states.
“The president needs to show leadership,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican considered a potential 2016 presidential contender, outside the West Wing. “The reality is it can be done. This administration has an insatiable appetite for new revenue.”
Democratic governors, meanwhile, laid responsibility squarely at the feet of Congress, but called on lawmakers from both parties to compromise.
“They need to get out of that box that sits under the dome and understand that this has real implications in people’s lives,” said Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy. “Work with the president, find a way to get it done — or if you want, just turn it over to us governors, and we’ll negotiate.”
The White House, seeking to ratchet up pressure on congressional lawmakers, gave the governors state-by-state reports on the impact of the cuts on their constituencies.
White House officials pointed to Ohio — home of House Speaker John Boehner — as one state that would be hit hard: $ 25.1 million in education spending and another $ 22 million for students with disabilities. Some 2,500 children from low-income families would also be removed from Head Start programs.
Officials said their analysis showed Kentucky would lose $ 93,000 in federal funding for a domestic abuse program, meaning 400 fewer victims being served in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state. Georgia, meanwhile, would face a $ 286,000 budget cut to its children’s health programs, meaning almost 4,200 fewer children would receive vaccinations against measles and whooping cough.
The White House compiled its state-by-state reports from federal agencies and its own budget office. The numbers reflect the impact of the cuts this year. Unless Congress acts by Friday, $ 85 billion in cuts are set to take effect from March to September.
As to whether states could move money around to cover shortfalls, the White House said that depends on state budget structures and the specific programs. The White House did not have a list of which states or programs might have flexibility.
Republican leaders were not impressed by the state-by-state reports.
“It’s time for the White House to stop spending all its time campaigning, and start finding smarter ways to reduce the deficit,” said McConnell.
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Associated Press writers Ken Thomas and Josh Lederman contributed to this report.
For Presidents Day, we thought we’d do a bit of catching up with Bill Allman, the White House curator. He took us to the East Room of the White House and gave us the story on Theodore Roosevelt’s official portrait.
President Roosevelt served in the White House from 1901 to 1909, and even in keeping with the standard for activity for commanders in chief, our 26th president was famously busy. That made finding time to sit down so that John Singer Sargent could do his work difficult.
Hear how this portrait came about:
President Barack Obama, who is on a weekend getaway in Florida this weekend, hit the links with Tiger Woods today, the White House reveals.
“The President played golf today with USTR Ron Kirk, Jim Crane and Tiger Woods,” deputy press secretary Josh Earnest says in a statement.
FILE – In this Jan. 31, 2013 file photo Sen. Lindsey Graham, D-S.C., questions former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Defense nominee, during Hagel’s confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. On a Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013, talk show Graham threatened to hold up Hagel’s Senate confirmation, and that of John Brennan as CIA director, until the White House provides more answers about the deadly September 11 attack against a US diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
FILE – In this Jan. 31, 2013 file photo Sen. Lindsey Graham, D-S.C., questions former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Defense nominee, during Hagel’s confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. On a Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013, talk show Graham threatened to hold up Hagel’s Senate confirmation, and that of John Brennan as CIA director, until the White House provides more answers about the deadly September 11 attack against a US diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
FILE – In this Dec. 21, 2012, file photo Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks during a Capitol Hill news conference in Washington about the investigation of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. On a Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013, talk show Graham threatened to hold up Hagel’s Senate confirmation, and that of John Brennan as CIA director, until the White House provides more answers about the deadly September 11 attack against a US diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt, File)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A leading Republican senator said Sunday he would hold up Senate confirmation of President Barack Obama’s nominees to head the Pentagon and the CIA until the White House provided more answers about the Sept. 11 attack against a U.S. installation in Benghazi, Libya.
The White House took aim at South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a persistent critic of Obama’s response to the terrorist assault, by urging quick approval of the president’s second-term national security team and scolding any lawmakers trying to “play politics” with critical nominations.
Graham accused the White House of “stonewalling” requests to release more information about the attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. “We’re going to get to the bottom of Benghazi,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
A Democratic colleague branded Graham’s threat to stall the nominations of former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., to be defense secretary and John Brennan, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, to be CIA director as “unprecedented and unwarranted.” Senators should have the chance to vote on the fate of those nominees, said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
The White House did not address Graham’s demand for more information, but did note that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified Thursday before Congress about the chaotic day of the Sept. 11 attack.
In January Graham had signaled he would delay Brennan’s pick and told Fox News he would “absolutely” block Hagel unless Panetta and Dempsey testified about the Benghazi attack. The senator said he was “happy as a clam” when he learned the hearing with Panetta and Dempsey had been scheduled.
Republicans have accused the Obama administration of an election-year cover-up of the attack and at the hearing several suggested the commander in chief was disengaged as Americans died.
“We know nothing about what the president did on the night of September 11th during a time of national crisis, and the American people need to know what their commander in chief did, if anything, during this eight-hour attack,” Graham said on CBS.
Graham contended that a six-person rescue team was delayed from leaving the Benghazi airport because of problems “with the militias releasing them and a lot of bureaucratic snafus,” and he said he wants to know whether Obama called any Libyan officials to expedite their mission.
“I don’t think we should allow Brennan to go forward for the CIA directorship, Hagel to be confirmed to secretary of defense until the White House gives us an accounting,” Graham said, adding, “What did he do that night? That’s not unfair. The families need to know, the American people need to know.”
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said, “We believe the Senate should act swiftly to confirm John Brennan and Sen. Hagel. These are critical national security positions and individual members shouldn’t play politics with their nominations.”
Reed said that “to dwell on a tragic incident and use that to block people is not appropriate. To try to find information, to ask legitimate questions, as Senator Graham is doing is completely appropriate. But then to turn around and say, ‘I’m going to disrupt, essentially, the nomination of two key members of the President’s Cabinet,’ I don’t think that’s appropriate, I don’t think it’s warranted, I think it is an overreaction that is not going to serve the best interest going forward of the national security of the United States.”
Graham would have none of it.
“In a constitutional democracy, we need to know what our commander in chief was doing at a time of great crisis, and this White House has been stonewalling the Congress, and I’m going to do everything I can to get to the bottom of this so we’ll learn from our mistakes and hold this president accountable for what I think is tremendous disengagement at a time of national security crisis,” he said.
At the Senate hearing, Panetta testified that he and Dempsey were meeting with Obama when they first learned of the Libya assault. He said the president told them to deploy forces as quickly as possible. Graham asked whether Panetta spoke again to Obama after that first meeting. Panetta said no, but that the White House was in touch with military officials and aware of what was happening. At one point, Graham asked Panetta if he knew what time Obama went to sleep that night. The Pentagon chief said he did not.
During an appearance in the White House briefing room, President Barack Obama paused from his prepared remarks to address news photographers, saying they “are breaking my flow.”
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