President Barack Obama's team emerged on Sunday to defend his handling of revelations that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for scrutiny, as senior Republicans conceded they lacked evidence — so far — that the president directed the abuses.

Republicans appeared on the Sunday talk show circuit with hopes of sustaining their political momentum generated during this past week, one of the toughest weeks of Obama's presidency. A series of controversies — that the IRS had targeted conservative groups, new questions about the administration's response to last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi, and news that the Department of Justice seized phone records of Associated Press journalists as part of an investigation regarding national security leaks — have forced the White House onto the defensive.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said the IRS controversy amounted to evidence of a "culture of intimidation" by the administration. But he and Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., admitted they lacked evidence that the targeting of conservatives was ordered by the White House.

"We don't have anything to say that the president knew about this," said Camp, who chairs the House committee looking into the IRS controversy, on NBC's "Meet the Press."

McConnell also could not point to evidence of presidential involvement in the IRS's scrutinizing of conservatives, though the Kentucky senator argued that a need for more information justified emerging investigations into the controversy.

"I don't think we know what the facts are," he said, appearing separately on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "The investigation has just begun, so I'm not going to reach a conclusion about what we may find."

Republicans have used the IRS controversy, along with the administration's other struggles as of late, to unify their party in Congress, and gain political traction against Obama. But their ability to sustain this momentum hinges on their ability to weave together these missteps into a more damning, overarching story about the administration.

But the White House has begun to push back. A top White House adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, emerged on Sunday to assert that the administration had handled the IRS fiasco properly.

 "There is no question that Republicans are trying to make political hay here," Pfeiffer said on "Meet the Press" of the IRS controversy.

Pfeiffer sought to undercut Republicans' criticism by asserting that Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., a top GOP critic of the administration who is in charge of White House oversight, was actually aware of an inspector general's investigation into the IRS abuses as early as last fall. To that end, Pfeiffer argued that even if the president were aware of the investigation of the IRS at an earlier point, it would have been inappropriate to become involved with or interfere with the inquiry.

Pfeiffer also sought to push back on Republican criticism of the administration's response to last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, which left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The White House aide argued that Republicans had essentially circulated "doctored" versions of emails — original copies of which the administration released this week — that they had known about for months in order to ding the administration. Pfeiffer said the ploy was a sign that Republicans were "getting desperate."

McConnell said he thought it was clear that the administration had "made up a tale" about Benghazi last fall, so close to the presidential election, because admitting to having presided over a terrorist attack would have been politically inconvenient for Obama.

"The talking points clearly were not accurate, and I think getting to the bottom of that is an important investigation," he said.

This story was originally published on Sun May 19, 2013 7:55 AM EDT

A top GOP critic pushed back Sunday on charges that Republican efforts to investigate last year's Benghazi attack are designed to inflict political damage on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"Hillary Clinton's not a target," said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa on NBC's Meet the Press. "President Obama is not a target."

Issa,  who heads a panel probing the assault on the diplomatic outpost that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, said he will seek depositions from Benghazi review board heads Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  

The interagency process of modifying talking points in the wake of the attack scrubbed the fact that the incident was "a terrorist attack from the get-go," Issa said Sunday. 

"The American people were effectively lied to for a period of about a month," he charged. "That's important to get right."

Issa's committee held a high-profile hearing last week on the Benghazi attack. The California Republican claimed Sunday that Pickering - the man who led an independent review of the attacks on behalf of the State Department - refused to testify at that hearing.

Pickering flatly denied that he was unwilling to appear.

"I said the day before the hearings I was willing to appear, to come from the very hearings [Issa] excluded me from," Pickering told NBC's David Gregory. "We were told the majority said I was not welcome at that hearing; I could come at some other time."

Issa said he was unaware of Pickering's late notice, which the ambassador said he communicated through the White House, but added that a private deposition - which he intends to formally request Monday from the ambassador - is the more appropriate way to begin the inquiry.

"The fact is we don't want to have some sort of a stage show," Issa said.

Issa spokesman Frederick Hill said in a statement that Oversight committee Republicans never received a request for Pickering to testify. 

"We challenge him to name the White House official who he was in contact with and the White House official whom he falsely says relayed his interest in testifying to Chairman Issa," Hill said. 

Republicans have been dogged in their questioning of the administration's response to the attack, with leaked documents revealing last week that officials at the State Department suggested edits to talking points that erased references to terrorist groups.

While Hillary Clinton has stated publicly that she was not involved in that editing process, criticism of the former State Department chief and much-discussed possible presidential candidate has been a strong subtext of the Benghazi debate.

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, said on Meet the Press that Issa's panel has deliberately put Clinton's ambitions in its crosshairs.

"My concern is when Hillary Clinton's name is mentioned 32 times in a hearing, then the point of the hearing is to discredit the Secretary of State, who has very high popularity and may well be a candidate for president," Feinstein said.

Likely 2016 Republican candidate Sen. Rand Paul excoriated Clinton in a speech Friday in key campaign state Iowa, saying her role in the Benghazi episode "should preclude her from holding higher office."

"I think that's nonsense," Feinstein said of Paul's claim. "And I think the American people will think that's nonsense." 

This story was originally published on Sun May 12, 2013 11:28 AM EDT

As the Obama administration grapples with evidence that chemical weapons may have been used in conflict-torn Syria, officials on both sides of the political aisle urged President Barack Obama Sunday to move towards arming rebels against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, a position once rejected by a White House reluctant to commit to military involvement in the rebellion.  

But lawmakers also warned that U.S. forces must be careful that weapons do not fall into the hands of radical Islamist groups.  

"Our problem in who to supply is that some of these groups are strong Islamists, Al Qaeda and others," Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said on NBC's Meet the Press. "And we've seen -- like in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere -- that Islamists tend to get the upper hand if they get in there."

"If we know the right people to get them, my guess is we'll get [weapons] to them," he added.

Former House Homeland Security chair Rep. Peter King, a Republican, similarly warned on CNN's State of the Union program that Al Qaeda has "a lot of control within the rebel movement."

"Obviously Assad is evil, and everyone’s interested he go," King said. "But if we are going to arm the rebels, we have to make sure that those arms are not going to end up in the position of Al Qaeda supporters, nor at the end game is Al Qaeda going to be in a position to take over this movement.”

Rep. Tom Cotton, a Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed optimism on NBC's Meet the Press that "we are moving closer to arming the reform-minded pro-Western rebels."

"This is something that should have been done many months ago," he added, also voicing support for a no-fly zone using aircraft and naval gunfire. 

Former Rep. Jane Harman, who now serves as the head of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, told NBC's David Gregory that there's "no chance" that the United States will have "boots on the ground" in Syria but that the complexities of the region's humanitarian and security issues must be addressed  with support for the rebels. 

"This is a big, escalated problem," Harman added. "I wish we had acted sooner."

Obama said last August that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a "red line" that - if crossed - would "change my calculus" on military intervention in the region.

“We have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is [if] we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilized," the president said at the time. 

A new report Sunday from the New York Times indicated that some Obama advisers were taken aback by that "unscripted" comment.

This story was originally published on Sun May 5, 2013 10:53 AM EDT

A bipartisan slate of political leaders pondered what role the United States should play in Syria following indications that its besieged leader used chemical weapons in that country's civil war. 

Following the Obama administration's declaration this week that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons against rebels looking to unseat him, lawmakers pondered how to best respond. President Barack Obama had previously called the use of such weapons a "red line" that would prompt a response from the United States.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged the president to begin identifying a strategy to secure Syria's stockpiles of chemical weapons should the government fall.

"Be prepared with an international force to go in and secure these stocks of chemical, and perhaps biological, weapons," McCain said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

But, mindful of Americans' war-weariness following nearly a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, McCain cautioned against sending U.S. troops to Syria, warning that it could prompt resentment from Syrians. 

The Arizona senator said in the meanwhile that Obama could establish a no-fly zone in Syria without endangering any U.S. troops. And McCain also called for Obama to further arm rebel groups. 

The White House has been more cautious, explaining this week in briefings to lawmakers that evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria is still preliminary, and the government would take more time to gather intelligence. 

"To use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and international law.  And that is going to be a game changer," Obama said Friday before meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan.

"We have to act prudently. We have to make these assessments deliberately," the president added. "But I think all of us, not just in the United States but around the world, recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations."

The administration's caution reflects the difficulty in navigating the situation in Syria. A key concern involves identifying which rebels to arm in Syria, and whether there is a risk of those arms being turned back agains the U.S. in the future. 

"My concern is that al Qaeda has more influence among the rebels than it should," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a key lawmaker who serves on intelligence and homeland security panels. 

But even beyond the national security implications, some lawmakers have said there might be humanitarian justifications to act in Syria.

"I think the United States could play a bigger role in dealing with the humanitarian crisis," said Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., one of two Muslim members of Congress. "I don't think the world's greatest super power, the United States, can stand by and do nothing."

This story was originally published on Sun Apr 28, 2013 9:33 AM EDT

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that when Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect killed Friday in a shootout with police, travelled to Russia in 2012, he may have done so under an alias.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s six-month stay in Russia last year “becomes extremely important” as a key to the investigation of the Boston bombings, Rogers told NBC’s David Gregory. His visit to Russia “would lead one to believe that that’s probably where he got that final radicalization to push him to commit acts of violence and where he may have received training” in terrorist techniques. Rogers, a former FBI agent, said the FBI had questioned Tamerlan Tsarnaev after being given information from a foreign intelligence service “that they were concerned about his possible radicalization.”

(That foreign intelligence service is widely thought to be Russia’s.)

The FBI, Rogers said, “did their due diligence and did a very thorough job” of investigating Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but when the FBI asked for more help from that foreign intelligence service, it got no further cooperation.

Rogers praised the FBI’s handing of Tamerlan Tsarnaev as “very prudent and very thorough” – and pointed out that the FBI questioned Tamerlan Tsarnaev before his sojourn in Russia.

But appearing on CNN's State of the Union Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., said Tamerlan Tsarnaev is the kind of person "you don’t want to let out of your sight,” and that it was a mistake for federal authorities to have lost track of him.

“Either our laws are insufficient or the FBI failed, but we’re at war with radical Islamists and we need to up our game,” the South Carolina Republican told CNN.

The Tsarnaev family were ethnic Chechens, an embattled Islamic nationality in Russia. They were granted legal permanent residence in the United States in 2007.

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s younger brother who was captured Friday night and is being treated in a Boston hospital, became a naturalized American citizen last year.

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said on Fox News Sunday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in serious condition and is “in no condition to be interrogated at this time.”

Scholars have for years pointed to ties between Chechen separatist fighters in Russia and al Qaida and the global jihadist movement.

The biggest questions for investigators now, said NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams , are why Tamerlan Tsarnaev apparently turned to jihadist views and “where did he get his expertise in explosives? Where did he practice them? It seems really unlikely that these two bombs successfully were detonated without some practice runs. Where did he learn to do that? Where did he practice it?”

Michael Leiter, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and an NBC News National Security Analyst, said it is not atypical for a foreign-born Muslim who has lived in the United States for years to become radicalized at some point and then engage in a terrorist plot. He cited the example of Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born naturalized U.S. citizen who confessed to a plot to bomb Times Square in New York City in 2010.

Asked whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should receive the Miranda warning that he has a right to remain silent before authorities begin to question him, Rogers said, “He’s a citizen of the United States and that brings all of the protections of the U.S. Constitution. Under the public safety exception, however, I do believe that the FBI has a period of time to try to determine what threats there are today – we don’t know if  there’s other (explosive) devices, we don’t know if there’s other people (involved in the plot). I think Mirandizing him up front would be a horrible idea. Now it’s my understanding that that’s not going to happen. I’ve had conversations with the FBI….”

He added, “We don’t need his confession up front. We need the information that he has to make America is safe.”

In a joint statement issued Saturday, three Republican senators, Graham, John McCain of Arizona, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, joined by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the Boston bombing suspect should not be given Miranda warnings. He “clearly is a good candidate for enemy combatant status. We do not want this suspect to remain silent,” they said.

“We are encouraged our High Value Detainee Interrogation Team (HIG) is now involved and working to gather intelligence about how these terrible acts were committed and possibility of future attacks,” they said, adding that the decision by the Obama administration to not immediately read him the Miranda warning “was sound and in our national security interests. However, we have concerns that limiting this investigation to 48 hours and exclusively relying on the public safety exception to Miranda, could very well be a national security mistake.  It could severely limit our ability to gather critical information about future attacks from this suspect.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed with that assessment, saying “I am disappointed that it appears this administration is once again relying on Miranda's public safety exception to gather intelligence which only allows at best a 48-hour waiting period that may expire since the suspect has been critically wounded.”

Top Republican immigration reform negotiator and potential 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday that he has not considered the 'political calculus' of pushing legislation that will be a magnet for criticism from some within his own party. 

"I, quite frankly, have avoided making the political calculus on this issue," the Florida senator said during an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. 

"What we have now isn't good for anybody," he added. "What we have in place today, the status quo, is horrible for America."

Seeking to assuage conservative concerns about the soon-to-be-unveiled immigration reform bill drafted by the bipartisan Gang of Eight, Rubio said the legislation, which would offer undocumented immigrants the opportunity to pursue legal status and eventually apply for a visa, does not "reward" those who broke the law.

"It doesn't reward or doesn't award them anything," he said. "But it does give them access to our legal immigration system through a process that will not encourage people to come here illegally in the future, and then through a process that isn't unfair for people that have done it the right way." 

Rubio, a conservative affiliated with the Tea Party and one of just three Latinos in the Senate, added that the bill will not allow undocumented immigrants to achieve citizenship faster than those waiting to come to the country legally. 

"If you're waiting to come legally to the United States now, no one who has done it the wrong way will get it before you.  In fact, it will be much cheaper, faster, easier and less bureaucratic if you're doing it the right way," he said. 

The interview with NBC's David Gregory was part of a weekend media blitz for Rubio, who appeared on all network Sunday shows as well as on Spanish-language programs to sell the immigration bill. The measure, which is expected to be unveiled on Tuesday, is sure to face fierce opposition from conservatives who oppose any legal status for undocumented immigrants.

While the full details of the path to citizenship have not been formally released by the Gang of Eight, reports have indicated that undocumented immigrants will be required to pay fines and back taxes and wait 10 years in a "probationary" status before becoming eligible to apply for a merit-based visa.

Asked if his shepherding of the immigration measure would help him in a potential matchup against a top Democrat like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, Rubio again demurred. 

"This is not about improving anyone's poll number numbers," he said. "This is very simple. I'm a Senator. I get paid not to just give speeches. I get paid to solve problems."

In the midst of their effort to broaden the party’s appeal, Republican leaders continue to engage – sometimes forcefully – on social issues that have sometimes turned off key voting blocs in the past.

The Republican National Committee’s “Growth and Opportunity Project” report issued last month recommended that the party be more “inclusive and welcoming,” warning that doing otherwise would “limit our ability to attract young people and others, including many women, who agree with us on some but not all issues.”

But Republican leaders – who face pressure from the party’s Christian conservative base to hold the line on social issues – have hardly disengaged from social issues.

Look no further than Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor this fall in his state, who last week asked a full federal appeals court to overturn a three-judge panel’s ruling that Virginia’s anti-sodomy laws were unconstitutional.

Cuccinelli’s decision to appeal appears to be related to preserving state laws against sex with minors, but it has the effect of asking the courts to uphold all of Virginia’s anti-sodomy statutes. To that end, the appeal has been characterized by Cuccinelli detractors as an effort to keep laws against gay sex on Virginia’s books.

A spokeswoman for the Virginia attorney general's office insists that the move is about protecting kids from sexual predators. "This case is not about sexual orientation, but using current law to protect a 17-year-old girl from a 47-year-old sexual predator," said Caroline Gibson.

“Ken Cuccinelli continues to ignore the economy and instead focus on a divisive ideological agenda,” wrote Josh Schwerin, a spokesman for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, on Twitter.

Cuccinelli’s appeal, though, is symptomatic of how Republicans have been drawn into social issues, and often to their peril.

Another example came on Wednesday as Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who commissioned the inclusivity-seeking Growth and Opportunity Project, took to the conservative blog RedState to complain that the mainstream media had mischaracterized abortion laws in North Dakota and Florida.

Priebus argued that the media had unfairly maligned conservatives in their coverage of the laws, which (respectively) sought to ban abortion after a heartbeat is detected, and provide medical coverage to a newborn from a failed abortion.

Moreover, Priebus launched into an attack on Planned Parenthood – a standby criticism of the last Republican presidential campaign – accusing it of supporting “infanticide,” and demanding that Democrats answer for their support for the organization.

Steve Helber / Steve Helber / AP file photo

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli last week asked a full federal appeals court to overturn a three-judge panel's ruling that Virginia's anti-sodomy laws were unconstitutional.

“In the last election, Republicans were repeatedly asked about whether they supported cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. It’s time Democrats are asked whether they still support funding an organization that refuses to care for a newborn,” Priebus wrote. “And this case of blatant media bias — cover-up really — should also be cause for some thoughtful self-examination among journalists.”

These strong stances by Cuccinelli and Priebus come amid the overarching GOP effort to broaden the party’s support among Latinos, young voters and women. The GOP report acknowledges at several points the role played by harsh rhetoric on social issues like gay rights in exacerbating the party’s deficit among those groups.

And a new poll released on Wednesday showed that there’s still work to be done. On the question of overall party images, and which party cares more about the average American, Democrats enjoy an advantage over Republicans among women.

Twenty-five percent of women said they had a favorable view of the GOP in the Quinnipiac University poll, versus 42 women who said they had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party. Fifty-three percent of women had a negative opinion of the Republican Party, versus 38 percent of women who said they had a negative impression of the Democratic Party.

Women also favored Democrats on the matter of which party better cared for needs and problems of people like them. Women respondents agreed, 59 percent to 38 percent, that Democrats cared for their needs and concerns; 35 percent of women said that Republicans cared for their needs and concerns, versus 60 percent of women who disagreed.

More broadly, Democrats also enjoy an advantage over Republicans on the question of which party better handles the issue of same-sex marriage. Forty-nine percent of all Americans said that Democrats do a better job, versus 28 percent who prefer Republicans. Independents favor Democrats, 48 percent to 26 percent, on that question, and even one in five Republicans — 21 percent — prefer Democrats’ handling of the issue of same-sex marriage. 

NBC's Kasie Hunt contributed to this report.

Related:

Top Va. Republican urges court to keep anti-sodomy law on the books

Surprising shifts in attitudes on same-sex marriage

North Dakota governor signs toughest anti-abortion package in US

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 4, 2013 5:06 AM EDT

With the caveat that negotiators still need to review and agree on legislative language, two key Senate lawmakers said Sunday that a deal on a comprehensive immigration reform bill is close but not complete after a breakthrough in talks between business and labor groups this weekend. 

"With the agreement between business and labor, every major policy issue has been resolved on the Gang of Eight," said Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer, one of the eight Senate leaders working on the legislation, during an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. 

Noting that the group has pledged not to come to a final agreement until legislative language is finalized, Schumer said he is "very, very optimistic" that the group of lawmakers will have a deal by next week. 

Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona, also a member of the Gang, agreed that lawmakers will be focused on the exact wording of the bill. 

"We've still got a ways to go in terms of looking at the language and making sure that it's everything we thought it would be," Flake said on NBC. "But we're closer, certainly." 

Another member of the group, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said on CNN that negotiators have a 'conceptual' agreement.

"It’s got to be written up," he said. "We haven’t signed off; there’s a few details yet. But conceptually, we have an agreement between business and labor, between ourselves. It has to be drafted. It will be rolled out next week"

After the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO reached an agreement on the parameters of a guest worker program -- one of the main holdups in the negotiations -- Republican Sen. Marco Rubio warned that reports of an overarching Gang of Eight deal were "premature." 

Schumer said Sunday that Rubio's statement did not indicate any kind of disagreement within the Senate group. 

"As Senator Rubio correctly says, we have said we will not come to final agreement until we look at all the legislative language, and he's correctly pointing out that language hasn't been fully drafted," Schumer said. "There will be little kerfuffles but I don't think any of us expect there to be problems."

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants whose biography and conservative credentials make him a key GOP voice on immigration, also wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and again in a press statement early Sunday that proponents should not rush the legislation to passage. 

"Arriving at a final product will require it to be properly submitted for the American people’s consideration, through the other 92 senators from 43 states that weren’t part of this initial drafting process," Rubio said. "In order to succeed, this process cannot be rushed or done in secret.”

Flake echoed that sentiment Sunday, pledging that the draft legislation will be amended in the Senate Judiciary Committee process and on the Senate floor.

"There will be input, there should be input," Flake said. "It will make it a better product." 

Schumer rejected the notion that Rubio could break from the Gang of Eight over concerns about the process.

"He is protecting some of the things that he thinks are very important in the bill, but I don't think that will stand in the way of any final agreement," Schumer said. "I think we're all on track."

Calling Rubio is "extremely important" to the bipartisan coalition, Flake said he's confident that the Gang of Eight will remain united. 

"I think that we'll stick together as a Gang," he said. "And I hope that we can pull some Republicans our way. I think a number of them are with us already." 

This story was originally published on Sun Mar 31, 2013 10:19 AM EDT

As both the House and Senate work on budget blueprints for the new fiscal year, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, emphasized on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that for his party “our priority is job growth” -- not cutting the debt or annual budget deficits.

“Right now our big problem is to sustain the economic recovery. We’ve seen momentum in the job market and the last thing we want do right now is to put the brakes on that,” Van Hollen told NBC’s David Gregory. “In fact one half of this year’s deficit is due to unemployment.”

According to the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12 million Americans were unemployed and seeking work in February, while another 885,000 weren’t looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

“What the president is saying is our focus right now should be to get people back to work, sustain the recovery – and then reduce the deficit in a measured, balanced way,” Van Hollen said. He added that President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for the new fiscal year which begins on Oct. 1 will put budget deficits “on a sustained, downward trajectory.”

Appearing alongside Van Hollen, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican Whip, complained that “the Democrats’ budget never balances,” while his party’s Fiscal Year 2014 blueprint will achieve a balance of spending and revenues by the end of the ten-year forecasting period.

“The president has a different belief than we do. He believes deficits don’t matter. We do,” McCarthy said.   

The California Republican defended the House Republicans’ budget plan which assumes that Obama’s health care overhaul, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, will be repealed. “Budgets are blueprints and priorities,” he explained. “We think Obamacare should be repealed. A majority of Americans agree with us. But we also think tax reform should happen so you can grow the economy.”

McCarthy added that persistently high federal debt would crowd out private sector borrowing and inhibit the growth of businesses.

Van Hollen said that the Democrats’ proposal would eventually achieve a balanced budget “out in the future, around 2040.” But he reiterated that for now the urgent need is job creation. The House Republican budget plan “will slow job growth at exactly the wrong time,” he contended.

Meanwhile on ABC’s This Week, House Speaker John Boehner again rejected the idea of additional tax increases, on top of the ones that Obama signed into law on Jan 2.

“The president believes that we have to have more taxes from the American people. We’re not going to get very far,” Boehner said. “The president got his tax hikes….. The talk about raising revenue is over. It’s time to deal with the spending problem.”

Boehner agreed with Obama’s recent remark that the federal government doesn’t face an imminent debt crisis. “We do not have an immediate debt crisis – but we all know that we have one looming,” Boehner said. “And we have one looming because we have entitlement programs that are not sustainable in their current form.”

Another prominent Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee said on Fox News Sunday that Republicans “would be glad to look at tax reform that generates additional revenues. And that doesn’t mean increasing rates, it means closing loopholes, and that also means arranging our tax system so that we have economic growth. And I think we have been saying that since day one.”

Published at 10:40 am ET:  House Majority Leader Eric Cantor urged Congress and President Barack Obama to agree on “smarter cuts” instead of the $85 billion in spending reductions that are set to begin March 1.

On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, the Virginia Republican said the $85 billion in spending reductions in the current fiscal year, called “the sequester” and mandated by the Budget Control Act which Obama signed into law in 2011, are “not the best way to go about trying to control spending.”

Cantor told NBC’s David Gregory that House Republicans have proposed alternatives – such as reducing the value of federal employee pension benefits – that would help avert the automatic spending cuts.

Cantor pinned the responsibility for suggesting the automatic cuts on Obama: “He’s the one who proposed the sequester in the first place.” Republicans, he said, are “anxiously waiting” for the president to begin discussing alternative cuts with GOP congressional leaders.

But Cantor said, “Every time you turn around,” Obama’s proposal is to raise taxes again. “He just got his tax hike on the wealthy and you can’t in this town every three months raise taxes,” the GOP leader said.

Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are seeking to raise additional tax revenue by eliminating or curbing some tax preferences and deductions. This would mean a new tax hike on top of the $700 billion increase signed by Obama on Jan. 2. That law, the American Taxpayer Relief Act, increased the top income tax rate on single earners with incomes above $400,000 and on married couples filing a joint return with incomes above $450,000.

It also reduced exemptions and deductions for single people who earn more than $250,000 and married couples filing a joint return who make more than $300,000. This effectively increased their tax bill.

Obama and most members of Congress didn’t expect or intend that the automatic spending cuts would go into effect; instead they thought they’d serve as a fail-safe device to spur agreement on a “grand bargain” of entitlement reforms, spending reductions and tax increases. When the “super committee” of 12 members of Congress failed to achieve that bargain, the automatic spending cuts were left as the default policy.

Senate Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said, “Sequestration was designed as a budget threat, not as a budget strategy.” He added, “It was supposed to be so awful that the super-committee would finally reach a bipartisan agreement.” He blamed Republicans on that panel for rejecting tax increases as part of an agreement.

As a way of raising more revenue, Durbin said, Democrats want to eliminate or curb some tax preferences, a strategy which “doesn’t really impose a tax burden on middle-class families.”

In an interview Sunday on Fox News, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi argued that cutting spending on education and scientific research is harmful -- “and they are what are affected by the sequestration. So it is almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem that we have to address.”

She said federal spending on education and research will produce more jobs – and that will mean more revenue flowing into the Treasury. “Nothing brings more money to the Treasury of the United States than investment in education of the American people,” the California Democrat said, arguing that Congress must choose “(spending) cuts that help us” and not allow “cuts that hurt our future.”

On immigration policy, Durbin hailed Cantor for changing his mind on allowing younger illegal immigrants or people brought into the United States by their parents when they were very young to become legal permanent residents and ultimately U.S. citizens.

Cantor said, “I thought the best place to start was with children. These are children who due to no fault of their own were brought here.”  He mentioned his own immigrant grandparents who emigrated to flee the anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia.

When Gregory asked Cantor whether he could bring with him a lot of conservative Republicans in the House to support an overhaul of immigration laws, Cantor said, “There’s a lot of movement right now in the House and the Senate, both sides of the aisle, with folks having a lot of different ideas.”

But Cantor clearly indicated that he would like Congress to pass a bill focused only on illegal immigrant children and “put a win on the board,” before addressing other, more complex aspects of immigration policy.

Yet Durbin said a legalization program for children or for people under age 21 would be only part of a larger immigration bill, and that a group of Democratic and Republican senators including Sen. Marco Rubio, R- Fla., is crafting that larger measure. “But it won’t just apply to children,” Durbin said. 

On another contentious policy dispute – Obama’s targeted killing policy for terrorists, even if they happen to be U.S. citizens – Durbin said Obama is working toward “a legal architecture to deal with this new war on terrorism” and “the new mode of war,” which includes not only drones as weapons, but computer-based or cyber warfare. “The policy is unfolding,” Durbin said, he did not say whether he thought a revised or new congressional authorization to use force was necessary.

Obama and the Justice Department have argued that the targeted killings of suspected terrorists in Yemen and elsewhere are fully authorization by the resolution Congress passed a few days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That congressional resolution, plus the president’s inherent authority as commander-in-chief to defend the nation from imminent attack, supply his constitutional basis for action, the Justice Department argued in a white paper reported Monday by NBC News.

Hours before President Barack Obama's official swearing-in to a second term, top Democrats predicted a victory for the broadest component of the White House's push to change the nation's gun laws. 

During an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Sen. Chuck Schumer, N.Y., called legislation to institute universal background checks for gun buyers "the sweet spot." 

"In terms of actually making us safer and having a good chance of passing, this is it," Schumer said on Sunday. 

"I think you're going to see [the very likelihood] in the next week or two a proposal that has broad support for universal background checks," he added. 

Schumer's confidence echoed the comments of White House senior adviser David Plouffe, who said on CNN Sunday that he's confident the president will have the votes in Congress to pass key parts of his gun control agenda because public opinion has shifted in the wake of the Newtown school shooting last month. 

"Newtown has changed the debate," Plouffe said. "Sadly, it took a tragedy like that, but you’re seeing a lot of people -- by the way Democrats and Republicans -- think differently about this issue since this tragedy."

"I think there's 60 votes in the Senate and 218 votes in the House if votes will come up for some of these gun safety measures like clips, like universal background checks, absolutely," he added. "There is a consensus in America on this, and I think we can get there here on Capitol Hill."

Obama unveiled a sweeping proposal last week that included the background check measure, limits on the capacity of ammunition clips, and a ban on assault weapons. Supporters of the plan point to overwhelming public support for the background check legislation; the assault weapons ban is far more divided along partisan lines. 

Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, said that Obama has exploited the mass shooting in Newtown in order to pass a pre-existing legislative agenda that caters to his political base. 

"This is not designed to actually solve the problem of violent crime. This is designed to assuage liberal partisans" on the issue of gun control, he said on Meet the Press. 

Cruz questioned the need to place further restrictions on gun shows, where critics say it is too easy to buy a firearm. 

"There actually isn't the so-called 'gun show loophole.' That doesn't exist," he said. "Any licensed firearm dealer who sells at a gun show has to have a background check." 

Another Republican senator suggested Sunday that the gun legislation may not even come up for a vote in the United States Senate, where Democratic leader Harry Reid faces tough politics when it comes to swing-state Democrats who are up for re-election in 2014. 

"I would really welcome the opportunity to have a fair and open debate on that in the United States Senate,"  said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming on CNN.

"But I don't think Senator Harry Reid even brings it to the Senate floor because he has six Democrats up for election in two years in states where the president received fewer than 42 percent of the votes." 

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that President Barack Obama’s nominee to be defense secretary, former Sen. Chuck Hagel, was “superbly qualified” and would be a strong advocate for Americans in uniform.

“This is a guy who would be very careful about putting their lives at risk because he put his life at risk,” Powell told NBC’s David Gregory.

Hagel, who was seriously wounded while serving as an Army infantryman in Vietnam, was a Republican senator from Nebraska from 1997 to 2009.

Related: Israel avoids public spat with Obama over Chuck Hagel defense nomination

“He knows what war is and he will fight a war if it’s necessary, but he’s a guy who will do it with great deliberation and care,” Powell said.

Like Hagel, Powell served in Vietnam. He later was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before serving as secretary of state under George W. Bush. He endorsed Obama’s candidacy in 2008 and in last year’s campaign.

Even before Obama announced the Hagel nomination last week, it came under fire. The Washington Post editorial page opposed him for not supporting economic sanctions against Iran.

Powell said Hagel does not rule out the use of military force against Iran. “I think what Chuck Hagel has said is that nothing is ever off the table. But he is one who believes in the prospects for negotiation.”

Some supporters of Israel have chided Hagel for saying “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here (on Capitol Hill).”

Powell said, “Chuck should have said ‘Israeli lobby,’ not ‘Jewish lobby.’ Perhaps he needs to write on a blackboard a hundred times, ‘It is the Israeli lobby.’”

Powell said Hagel is “a very, very strong supporter of the state of Israel” but “that doesn’t mean you have to agree with every single position that the Israeli government takes.”

If Hagel is confirmed by the Senate, part of his job will be to scale back the $630 billion Pentagon budget. As for Hagel’s comment that the military is “bloated,” Powell said if there are unnecessary parts of the military, then “I hope he does find bloat – and gets rid of it.”

As a senator, Hagel voted for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, but later was harshly critical of Bush’s conduct of the operation. In 2007 Hagel said “before this (Iraq intervention) is over, you might see calls for his impeachment."

Hagel also opposed Bush’s Iraq surge strategy in 2007, calling it "the most dangerous foreign-policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.”

But Powell on Sunday firmly defended Bush’s 2003 decision to order the invasion of Iraq and his own role as secretary of state in advocating for that invasion.

Bush in 2003 “had more than sufficient basis to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction that were a danger to the world… and so he undertook a military action. I think that was the correct thing to do,” Powell said. 

But he added, “We did not execute the operation well,” since the fall of Baghdad in 2003 “was just the beginning” of a prolonged peacekeeping operation.

Despite his support for Obama, Powell said, “I’m still a Republican,” but he delivered a prolonged criticism of the Republican Party, rebuking the hawks in the party. “They’ve lost two elections. The American people have made it clear that they are not particularly interested in finding new conflicts to get into.”

“I think what the Republican Party needs to do now is to take a very hard look at itself” and at the attitude of some Republicans toward ethnic minorities, he said, accusing unnamed Republicans of “intolerance” and “(looking) down at minorities.”

Powell criticized – although did not identify by name -- former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, who served as chief of staff for President George H. W Bush and as an aide to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, for calling Obama “lazy” after his first debate performance and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin for using the phrase “shuck and jive” in criticizing Obama’s explanation of the administration’s response to attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi.

Since Obama nominated Hagel last week to succeed Leon Panetta as defense secretary, the administration has been trying to bolster support for the nomination in the face of criticism from Senate Republicans such as Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, both members of the Armed Services Committee which will conduct Hagel’s confirmation hearing later this month.

In comments on another Sunday morning program, another Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “I honor Chuck Hagel’s service” and “he’s a friend,” but questioned “whether he really believes that the surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War. That clearly is not correct – in fact, it’s bizarre.”

He also criticized Hagel for not supporting a move to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. McCain said he wasn’t announcing how he’d vote on the nomination but wanted to hear Hagel’s responses to questions during his confirmation hearing.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said on Fox News Sunday "it perplexes me why the president nominated Sen. Hagel."

She said some statements from the Iranian government “that were favorable to his nomination. In fact, they said they were hopeful that with his nomination, they hoped that we would change our policies. What I want to make sure is that Iran is actually not hopeful, but they're fearful” of the secretary of defense because “that will cause them to stop marching toward acquiring a nuclear weapon."

Taking a noncommittal stance on Hagel’s nomination is a leading Senate Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who on Meet the Press on Dec. 23 passed up the chance to support him.

Last week, Schumer told WHEC, the NBC affiliate in Rochester, N.Y., that “before I make any determination, it is only fair to sit down and talk with him and ask him some very serious questions about his views on Iran, on the Middle East, on the military in general.”

But in the end it’s highly unlikely that Schumer, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, would embarrass Obama by opposing Hagel.