i'm chris wallace. the firestorm over the deal that traded five taliban leaders for sergeant bowe bergdahl. setting the record straight on what we know and the questions still unanswered. >> we saw an opportunity and seized it, and i make no apologies for that. >> backlash from the right and left on the president's decision to go it alone. >> the transfers went ahead with no consultation. totally not following the law. >> we have now created an incentive for the enemies of the united states to capture american men and women in uniform to exchange them. >> we'll ask former attorney general michael mucasey if the

president broke the law, and talk with retired four star general about the military principle, leave no soldier behind. then, as the story of the captivity comes to live, calls for a full investigation. >> he voluntarily left us behind to do his own thing. >> this man has to be accountable for his actions. >> we'll sit down with parents who's son was killed searching for him, and a member of the unit who says he was a deserter. was that the first sign of incompetence in the white house? our panel weighs in all right now on "fox news sunday." and hello from fox news in washington. there has been fierce criticism of the swap of five taliban

leaders for army sergeant bowe bergdahl. questions about how he was captured and how the white house handled the release. did he serve with honor or was he a deserter? did we give up top to get him back. we will dedicate the hour to try to sort out the facts. we begin with fox team coverage. the five gitmo detainees, but first, on how begdahl is recovering and how he became a prisoner. >> reporter: he's at a military hospital in germany. he's physically sound, no sign of chronic disease despite the concern over his declining health was the reason they moved to exchange prisoners for his release. they are going to debrief him as soon as the doctors and psychologists say he's ready. there's questions about why he

left the base in eastern afghanistan on june 30th, 2009. he left the base at least once before. defense officials confirm that begdahl did try to escape from the taliban at least once, and after taechlti iattempting to d confined him to a cage and solitary confinement for period of time. an investigation into his disappearance said he walked off base, but did not declare him a deserter because they could not establish his intent. he left the weapon and body armor at the base and only took personal items. according to wisconsin chi likes, an american soldier is looking for someone who speaks english. he left behind a letter explaining why he was leaving, maybe about e-mails that he sent home to his parents published in

rolling stone magazine in which he wrote, quote, i'm ashamed to be an american, and the u.s. soldier is a lie of fools. the horror that is america is disgusting. according to the e-mails obtained, his father responded, obey your conscience. he has not spoken to his parents yet, according to u.s. officials, chris. >> jennifer, thank you. now chief intelligence correspondent katherine on the potential repercussions of releasing the taliban five. >> reporter: a number of detainees is nearly one in three returning to the battle field. but it's much higher because the u.s. government only knows when they are killed or captured. >> i'm not surprised that certain detainees who are highly radicalized go back to the fight. even after they're held in

continued detention in another country or go through a rehabilitation program. >> reporter: they were transferred to guantanamo in 2002. military commanders, some with links to al-qaeda. and some defenders of the swap say they have been out of the fight for a decade. >> the idea you're old doesn't mean much. they have survived guantanamo, they are rock stars. >> reporter: they point to israel, in 2011, they traded 1027 prisoners for one prisoner held by hamas. but some argue that the jewish state is a unique case. it puts the premium on the military because everyone serves. fox news reported from the detention camps a dozen times. less than 90 have been transferred since president obama took office.

the taliban five swap may have lost the goodwill to close the camp. >> this is the poster child of unintended consequences. now it's had the exact opposite effect. it's making it harder for them, i think, at least in the short term to do transfers. >> reporter: they say impeachment is on the table if the president releases more prisoners without congressional approval. contrary to the statements in an interview, dianne feinstein has seen no credible evidence he would have been killed if the details had leaked. thank you. very so many aspects to the case. and begin with the legal questions. joining us, former u.s. attorney general and former federal judge, michael comoou mucasey.

should they order a full investigation of bowe bergdahl's actions off the base and a court-martial? >> the question is up to the army. they should act swiftly. no reason this case can't be presented in six months. there's been an investigation into the circumstances of his disappearance as your report indicated. we know what he did, the question is why, it's obvious. what he did after wards? you can't wait to try a case until you know everything about everything. we know enough. >> from what we know so far, is begdahl quality of leaving the base without permission? guilty of being a deserter and a defector? and after five years of captivity, and some people initially said, well, that's enough, should he face the

appropriate punishment if found guilty? >> the question of punishment is something that comes after a court-martial. i think the question of whether he suffered enough should not at all relate to the question of whether he gets tried. desertion is a very serious offense. it carries a penalty if it's done in wartime that includes possibly the death penalty. at the end of world war ii, we executed a u.s. soldier in january of 1945 for desertion. it's a serious offense, and carries a lifetime penalty, even in peacetime. that is a very critical matter. the continued reliability of soldiers. >> so you believe the death penalty should at least be on the table for begdahl? >> no, not for him, but that case at the end of world war ii was virtually unique in modern times. that is some indication of the serious with which the military does view and should view desertion. >> let's talk about another legal issue. that's the one of congressional

notification. when the president signed the defense authorization act last year, it contained a provision that the administration must notify congress not later than 30 days before the transfer or release of a prisoner from guantanamo. question, did the president break the law, or was that requirement an unconstitutional infringement on his executive powers? >> well, yes to both. he broke the law, but i believe that the law itself is unconstitutional. article 2 makes him commander in chief of the armed forces. these people were in the custody of the armed forces. it gives him plenty of authority to conduct foreign affairs. and toed extent that statute tries to restrict his power, it's unconstitutional, and he said so at the time that he signed it. >> president obama said he wanted to close guantanamo, from

the second day of his administration, does he have the y authority to do so? >> he has the authority to do so, but the question is under what circumstances. when lindsey graham called for impeachment being on the table, i think what he was disclosing and making clear is that whether you impeach somebody doesn't depend on whether they violate the law. the president can stay within his lawful powers and still commit an impeachable offense. he can pardon anybody he wants. if he decided tomorrow to pardon everybody in the u.s. prison system, that would be lawful, but raise serious questions about whether he should continue in office. the same is true of the wholesale release of dangerous people. >> you wrote an article for the "washington post" on friday that you called the decision ghastly, and at another point, grotesque,

for a judge that's pretty strong language, sir. >> i was never known to pull punches, even on the bench. but i'm not a judge now. i can call them as i see them. >> and why do you feel those words were appropriate? >> i think those words were applied in the column to the scene in the rose garden, where having made this questionable decision, the president was taking a victory lap, which i thought was absurd. >> thank you for clearing up the legal questions. thank you so much for joining us. >> good to see you. , of course, all this issi happening at war in afghanistan. to look at the military side, the former vice chief of staff of the army. welcome back to "fox news sunday." >> good to be here. >> we have heard a lot about the military principle, leave no soldier behind. is that true even in a case like

this where bowe bergdahl at least walked off his post and may have deserted? >> yes, definitely. if he defected, that would be another matter. we would not go after him, no rescue, and no negotiations for him. but this is still a united states soldier. and we want to the bring him home and we want a full accounting of what took place and his behavior. everyone in the administration certainly knows that he deserted his post. that is a fact. they're not going to make a lot of statements about that, because frankly, we want this soldier to come home, be interrogated by an expert, get the facts on the table, going to a court-martial, so be it. we don't want him right now with a lawyer because we're making statements that would have to protect him in his due process. >> you talk about -- one thing if he's a deserter, another if he's a defector. we got reports from james rosen

based on reports that he did try to escape at least twice, punished, but at a later point during his five years, he declared himself a warrior for jihad. how does the facility sort that out? >> the primary evidence is him. and we have a single source reporting on everything you described. multi-source reporting is a process. confirm a single source. particularly human sources. multisources have confirmed he tried to escape. not confirmed multiple escapes. we have not confirmed that he sought favor from the enemy, which the single source says he did, or collaborating with the enemy, which the single source said he did. an experienced interrogator will get to the bottom of this.

>> there has been a firestorm of criticism of comments made by national security adviser rice last sunday on another show. here's what she said then and how she tried to clean it up on friday. >> he served the united states with honor and distinction. what else referring to, this was a young man who volunteered to serve his country in uniform at a time of war. that is itself a very honorable thing. >> do begdahl's actions meet any military definition of honor and disstin distincti distinction, and in the past week, how have the military leaders you have spoken to regard the swath, the decision to bring back begdahl and the way it was rolled out by the administration? >> certainly, yes. the fact that a citizen volunteers, becomes a soldier, becomes a paratrooper, goes to

combat, has an urn blemished record as a soldier, and deserts his post and betrays his comrades, that trumps the previous behavior. that's a distinction, and he has to be held accountable for that. and certainly the united states military in looking at behavior like that, are not going to tolerate it. and the way soldiers feel about that, particularly his teammates, is one word, and that's betrayed. >> and how have the military leaders you have talked to, you are in closed talks, particularly in the pentagon, how have they viewed the way the week rolled out? >> they're outraged that the president at the rose garden ceremony was promoting on event in terms of public relations. and then taking this family, who by the way the military advised to maintain a low profile, and they had been for years, and then to put them in front of the cameras like that and begin a

celebration. i think that created not only anguish among those who were his teammates and those who may have lost their lives in rescuing him, but senior military leaders shook their head and said why are we doing something like that? >> let's talk about the taliban five, the five detainees, who we swapped for begdahl. defenders, up on the screen, these are five gray beards off the battlefield for a decade. and president obama says the risk is acceptable. >> we have released under my administration and previous administrations a large number of former taliban fighters, some of whom return to the battlefield. you don't do prisoner exchanges with your friends, you do them with your enemies. >> general, realistically how big a threat are these five men? >> first of all, any exchange,

we're trying to get back someone held in captivity, it will naturally favor those held in captivity. what prime minister netanyahu had to do. secondly, these five taliban guys, they are everything people are saying they are. the fact of the matter is, it is no conditions that are mitigating what's taking place here. no phones, visitors, restricted, be on a military base on qatar, and international observers watching. and they are now reintegrating with the leadership of the taliban, on the phone, internet, have visitors from them. they'll eventually come back into the leadership fold of the taliban, make no mistake about that. the fact of the matter is, what is the risk? we're down to less than 10,000 next year, u.s. troops. to less than 5,000 a year after that when these guys are

supposedly going back. there is some risk here. the greater risk is to all the islamic movements around the world who see what the united states is willing to do to make an exchange. that makes u.s. people, soldiers and civilians vulnerable to radical islamists. >> the white house was defending the actions, this is the kind of messy thing that happens at the end of the war, but it isn't the end of the war. we're going to have 9800 troops there next year, and have that all the way to the end of 2016. is the white house premature in talking about the end of the war? >> i think they have wanted to talk about the end of the war going back to when he is kalated the surge forces into the war. and this is, the release, and the way the announcement was handled, is part of the president's desire to end this

war. it's quite inappropriate in how this has been handled. >> general, thank you. always a pleasure to talk with you. >> good talking to you, chris. >> what do you think about the prisoner swap? join the conversation on facebook. coming up, what happened in afghanistan five years ago. a personal perspective talking with a former member of the unit with begdahl, and parents who believe their son was killed searching for him. that's next. i got more advice than i knew what to do with. what i needed was information i could trust on how to take care of me and my baby. luckily, unitedhealthcare has a simple program that helps moms stay on track with their doctors and get the right care and guidance-before and after the baby is born. simple is good right now. (anncr vo) innovations that work for you. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. to build something smarter. ♪

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. some of the toughest reaction to the release of bowe bergdahl has come from people who were personally involved in his story. members of his unit say he served without honor or distincti distinction. and parents of some fallen soldiers say they sons would be alive if he had not gone missing from his post. joining us now from california, josh corneliusson, and the parents of private first class matthew bartenek who was killed on patrol in 2009. one of the reasons there has been so much controversy this week is because the obama administration pushed back against some of your claims. here is defense secretary hagel on whether soldiers were actually killed looking for bowe bergdahl. here he is. >> i do not know of a specific

circumstance or details of u.s. soldiers dying as a result of efforts to find and rescue sergeant bergdahl. >> cheryl, the pentagon points out that matthew was killed in september, more than two months after bergdahl disappeared, and they question the connection. your reaction. >> they didn't find him. they still kept looking for him. that's what they were doing. i guess when it first happened, they shut everything down. but the missions kept up, trying to look for him. and rescue him. >> the military points out that five soldiers were killed in the three months after bergdahl disappeared and eight soldiers in that part of afghanistan were killed in the same three months the previous year. i don't think they're in any way trying to diminish your loss of your son, but they are pushing

back on this idea that there's a link and that somehow this is being blamed on his desertion. >> i'll say two things to that. first off, the people that were there, the people in matt's platoon, his company, all say that this was the mission. nobody's coming out saying, well, no, it's the mission. second, if he worked for me, the statement that was just made -- i would -- >> secretary hagel? >> correct. as a businessman, i would say you're in charge. if you don't know, then you shouldn't be in charge. they know. american people know that this is not being handled properly. the army knows what went on. and what's frustrating is why not tell the truth? i mean, whether or not he

deserted, was captured in a battle, slept walked -- they would have had to go after him. now the fact that he voluntarily left hurts us, because we may not have been here if he didn't do that. but i -- this is the confusing thing. the truth is not that bad. >> josh, the whole point of this -- this hour of is to try to get at the truth. you were a friend of their son, of matthew. take us back to the -- to the weeks and months after bergdahl disappeared. how much did that affect and change what your unit and matthew's unit were doing. >> after -- after bowe bergdahl purposefully and willfully walked away, every single mission we did was tilted -- was focused on finding bergdahl. maybe not every single mission was kicking down a door because we had intel he was there. we were finding people, either

locals that said they had information about where bowe bergdahl was, or going and talking with the locals to see if they knew anything about bowe bergdahl. but every single mission after he left was tilted towards finding him. every mission. >> members of your mission, including you, have been speaking out since bergdahl was released, and the administration has also been pushing back at some of the comments that you and your colleagues have made. here is a spokeswoman for the state department on some of the comments your unit has made. take a look. >> all this time, five years to determine whether he was a deserter or not. >> he was in captivity, he knows best what happens on that night. >> his squad mates have the best indication. >> i don't think that's the case. >> i don't think that's the case. your reaction to hearing someone from the state department podium saying that in effect you guys

don't know what went on. and some on background have been tougher, talking about smearing bergdahl, or swift boating bergdahl. >> i don't know what people want to -- or what certain peoplement -- want to hear. i was there. everybody else that i have been -- that i have been talking with or two, there's been six of us, primarily. we were there. this isn't some story that we're making up. we were there for the night he left, the morning when we realized he doesn't there, the following 90 days of agony that bergdahl put us through. this isn't second or third hand reports or accounts. we were there running missions every day to try to find bowe bergdahl. >> the army asked all of you to sign non-disclosure agreements while he was in captivity because they didn't want you

saying thing that is might encage danger him, did you sign one and why are you speaking out now? >> i did. the last five years there's been a lot of mixed details about what happened with bowe bergdahl. and the american public needs to be educated that he's not a hero, did not serve with honor or distinction. he's a deserter who walked away from his post, and needs to be held accountable for putting the lives of myself, my platoon, my unit and everyone in eastern afghanistan in danger. he needs to be held accountable for that. >> summing up here, cheryl, start with you, what part -- and i know this must be deeply emotional for you, it brings up matthew's loss. what part of this week disturbs you the most? >> i guess i -- as a mom, i

don't want to see another mom go through this. releasing the five taliban, extremely dangerous for our country. finding out that we're going to be minimizing our troops over there come 2016, 5,000 troops, that's a massacre waiting to happen. that's not good. especially -- that gives these taliban leaders a year to prepare. to take back afghanistan. and when they do, it's going to be hard. it's going to be with -- with -- they're going to be going for it. this is bad. >> and final thought? what about this week? all aspects of it? >> well, it tears the scabs, and it was like it happened yesterday. and it hurts. and when cheryl said we don't want another mother to go

through this, to be treated this way, we're just regular people. and, you know, so many people don't keep up with what's going on. they need to understand, they could be the next story where something happened and they're not told the truth. the american people need to know the truth about bowe bergdahl. they need to know the truth about the decision to let five of the worst go when 12 years of u.s. troops, foreign troops, people risked their lives, families lives have been upended, to take those type of people away and either put them away or kill them. and now we say we were only kidding and let them go? there's a big problem here. and -- this is why we're doing this. matthew was an honorable person. everybody loved him. and we are doing this for matthew. we're doing it for the soldiers

like josh. >> ken, cheryl, josh, thank you for coming in and sharing your stories with us. >> thank you. >> thanks, chris. >> thank you. how could the president and top advisers have miscalculated so badly about what susan rice first called a joyous day? the sunday group weighs in next. plus, what would you like to ask about how the white house handled the swap? we may use your question on the air, go to facebook.com.

. we also made an ironclad commitment to bring our prisoners of war home. that's who we are as americans. the main concern was that we had to act fast in a delicate situation that required no publicity. >> president obama started out last weekend celebrating the prisoner swap for bowe bergdahl, but by friday, he was forced to defend the decision and his failure to notify congress. it's time for the sunday group. george will, from from national public radio, steve hayes, and lon williams. george, this was always going to be tricky. how do you defend releasing, making a prisoner swap, for a soldier who walked away from his post at the very least deserted, one could argue the a the most. as you look back, how did it

become such a mess for the administration? >> by doing it in the rose garden. making it a moment of national celebration, it was surrounded by ambiguity that was going to come up if this were announced as a tidying up at the end of afghanistan, that would have been one thing. then the president said time was of the essence, supposedly because a five-month-old video was showing his health in peril. >> they saw back in january. >> correct. five months ago. secretary hagel repeated he was in peril. dianne feinstein said there was no evidence to believe that. conflict from the start. there were two other motives for the administration, policy motives. one is if you can get rid of the five worst offenders, it makes it easier to close guantanamo, the rest seems minor and

trivial. and the third is this was an attempt to reach out to the moderates in the taliban. leave it up to you to decide if that's of an oxy moron. back to the cold war thinking, we try to manipulate our enemies, sometimes to no effect. but that's what happened. a plethora of reasons, none of which seemed satisfactory. >> we asked you for questions, and from facebook, when is the president going to invite the families of those killed looking for bergdahl to the rose garden? moira, you spent a lot of time covering the white house. do they realize how tone deaf, even offensive, the rose guarden ceremony was, and how do they explain it? >> a lot of democrats say it was a mistake.

they should have made a statement, strong and silent. but the white house said they had to do it, the president was leaving the next day. parents just happened to be in town. which was true, they were here for memorial day. the parents have been in regular contact with white house officials for years. they decided to do this, the president had to own the decision, it was his. and as in many cases before, overspin things. try to milk too much benefit for the president out of it. they knew it was going to be controversial. and i think that of all people, harry reid, who usually isn't considered a great communicator, said it better than president obama did. it doesn't matter if he was sick or his health was in danger, it doesn't matter the circumstances, we had to get him back. that's what the president should say, i did it because we leave no one behind. period. >> the white house has taken to summarizing the president's foreign policy as don't do stupid stuff, they use another

word for stuff. did they do stupid stuff this week? >> i agree watt rose garden announcement was tone deaf, but the problem is substance. the problem is the administration's case about bowe bergdahl has fallen apart. the administration's case about these guantanamo detainees has fallen apart. there's not minor conflicts between the story the administration sold, and the story that the intelligence officials have provided in classified briefings and elsewhere. as george pointed out, the health issues, front and center, the first arguments. secretary hagel said we had to save his life based on this video from five months ago. you have dianne feinstein and james clapper saying there's no evidence to support the claim. and on the guantanamo detainees, the same thing. certifying they are no longer a threat to u.s. national security, not a problem, and yet

you have in private briefings, the national officer for south asia testifying that four out of five are likely, nearly certain to go back to fighting. and james clapper, in private, not in public, saying in effect these guys are going to go back and fight. we're returning fighters to the enemy, not fighters, but commanders while the war is going on. >> you like to take the other side, any part of how it's been handled and the substance of the decisions that you want to defend? >> i don't think it's a matter of defending. i think it's a matter of us as americans not getting lost in the, i think, troubling optics of the white house ceremony. or, you know, a great job of reporting on all of this stuff, but i think, again, you can't get lost in the fog where the key, very clear principle. the clear principle is we don't leave soldiers behind. and at the moment, i think

what's necessary here, i'm reminded this sunday morning of the story of the prodigal son. that you don't make judgments as you have the opportunity to bring that child back. america should be loving this child at this moment. obviously we don't know why he left. we think he's a troubled person. we think he may have lost a sense of america's mission. all true. but the idea is we don't leave people in the enemy's hands. the enemy saw him as an american soldier. that young man suffered. he was caged, chris. his parents suffered. and yet people want to argue about the father's beard. they want to say they shouldn't have a parade. let the military decide. the military's best position, not us sitting here on this panel, and not all the political people on the republican side who have flip-flopped, flip-flopped, chris, in the most craven way. unbelievable. yet we have to bring --

>> the details matter -- we didn't flip-flop. the detail was this matter. the deday tails of the detainees. you accept the principle we want to bring everybody back. the details of the transfer matter. these five guys, that makes it difficult for some of the people who wanted to bring him back in theory, difficult to swallow. and on the second point, you're right. some people jumped to conclusions, saying he's an enemy collaborator. we don't know that. from his squad mates, we heard he sought out the taliban. those guys in the field don't have a choice. they don't think about whether to treat him like a prodigal son, love him. their you know know whats were on the line as they went after him to try to recover him. they can't think of this as

theoretical. they heard he went out and sought out the taliban. they have to regard him in that way. >> you and i operate in light, in friends, we have each other's backs. but i have to tell you, those young men are operating in a way different than the military. they never designated as a deserter, aol or -- he was treated as an american being held as a prisoner of war. >> george, final thoughts? >> i do. we're accepting the principle we leave no one behind. every principle must have a limiting principle. these five were a good exchange, why not 5? 20? go to the taliban and say we will not violate this principle, good, we can ratchet up the price indefinitely. >> all right. we have to leave it there. but we are going to continue the

conversation. when we come back, the backlash over the bergdahl prisoner swap has been bipartisan. can president obama sell it as just another phoney thing.

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i'm never surprised by controversies that are whipped up in washington, right? that's -- that's par for the course. >> president obama brushing off criticism of the bergdahl prisoner swap as washington politics as usual, and we're back now with the panel. george, one of the problems with this controversy is that it's just the latest in a series of issues for the president, starting with the obamacare website disaster, then all the problems with the way the president handled ukraine and putin. we just got out of the v.a. scandal, and now he have this bergdahl controversial prisoner

swap. i guess the question, is there a cumulative effect, not just one, but one after the other that raises questions about the president's competence? >> it raises questions, and democrats defections from it. before the three crisis, there were two others. last autumn, the president clearly wanted to make larry summers the new head of the fed. and a rebellion among democrats stopped him. he wanted authorization to use force against syria, and the rebellion from democrats stopped him. those are two key powers for the president, the appointing power and the war power. five crisis, going back to late last summer, and indicates that democrats are withdrawi ining support from the president. and the v.a. rules this week, that complicates the democrats seeking re-elections.

i haven't seen worst relations like this since the carter years. >> the polls are evenly split on the release, approve, disapprove. is it possible that folks here in washington are overestimating, given how war-weary the country is, whether they're going to be outraged about anything that seems to move us a little bit closer to the exit in afghanistan? >> i think there's no evidence yet that this is going to affect individual senate. now, will it remind the republican base of the reasons they don't like president obama? yes, but they're energized to begin with. there's a risk for republicans, veer into right wing political correctness, impeachment, the father's beard. he looks like bikers in idaho to me. to say he's a muslim or islamic sympathizer, questioning whether bergdahl should have been released at all. there's a risk there.

but i think it purts thurts the president. he's in trouble this election year. but as a determining factor in senate races, i don't think so. >> then there is hillary clinton who is now beginning the big offensive. you thought d-day was big, this is the rollout of her new book, "hard choices." and it turns out that she did oppose an earlier swap for bergdahl, and there have been leaks from the book. her camp leaked that in the book she says she knew opening the door to negotiations with the taliban would be hard to swallow for many americans after so many years of war. and here's what she says in her first interview about the book. >> one of our values is, we bring everybody home off the battlefield the best we can. it doesn't matter how they ended up in a prisoner of war situation. >> it doesn't matter? >> it does not matter. we bring our people home.

>> sort of like, what difference does it make? >> yeah, i think one of the reasons that this is going to be so challenging for her, is she has to answer for all of these things particularly in the foreign policy and national security arena where she served for four years. she's going to do a delicate dance, defending the administration and the choices, and trying to create choices where it's politically difficult. i think this will end up being problematic for the president for precisely the opposite reason than the president thought. this was not whipped up in washington. this is something i think took place in afghanistan. we sent back the guantanamo detainees. at a base level, people not following politics day in and day out, are looking at the guantanamo five and saying why in the world would we do this? and the conflicts that we're hearing within the administration's own story. the administration went to court to keep one of these five in jail at guantanamo just three

years ago. because he was such a huge risk. such a risk to u.s. national security. and now they're letting him walk. those are things you don't have to have a ph.d. in national security studies to understand. that just doesn't make sense. >> one, does this mess, and i think we all agree that it's a mess this week, does it have any impact either in the 2014 mid-terms or for hillary clinton in 2016? >> i think for mrs. clinton, she initially in the book says she was opposed to the deal, and then has come to the point where she says she was willing to negotiate because she wanted to get him back. and now she's supportive of the administration's decision as you heard. i think this fits the title of her book, "hard choices," so grappling with difficulties. that doesn't have much consequence for her political future. for democrats, you have heard from senator dianne feinstein to

say they were not informed. democrats feel like they have been left behind by the administration. they are saying they are keeping them up to date, and with the epa decision, the administration feels they had to make that call. but go back to other situations where they just want the administration to communicate with them, to make them feel like they are on the same team. and right now the administration is so angry with the inaction in congress and the fact that house republicans are able to block, however, you describe it, and turn away and say we're about our business, and if the congress wants to sit there as an impediment, let the american people judge them. >> one quick point. 30 seconds left, george. and the president's approval rating is a huge factor in the mid-term. and the sixth year of a two-term president, if it's over 50%, they lose -- his part loses 14

seats in the house. under 50%, they lose 36 seats. so anything that contributes to people not feeling good about obama called also affect that. >> numerous democrats seeking election to the senate are being required to run five to eight points ahead of the president's job approval. very difficult. >> thank you, panel. see you next week. up next, words of wisdom for the class of 2014 from our power players of the week. what happened? life happened. stress. fun. bad habits. kids. kids. kids. now what? not milk. not sheep. not that. let's think smarter. let's get some science in here. let's build a bed. another bed? no, a smarter bed a entirely new sleep number bed that tracks your movement, your heartbeat, your breathing - sensors working directly with the dual air chambers - yeah you need the air chambers. introducing the sleep number bed now with sleepiq technology. it tracks your sleep patterns and tells you

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it's become annual tradition here to sample some of the words of wisdom college graduates are getting at the commencements. this year the speakers include politicians, an nfl quarterback, and a famous ex-wife. and they're all our power players of the week. ♪ >> one regret that i've always had here, i never got to throw any football passes here on this lawn. so if you'll indulge me, i'm going to fulfill that dream right now. if you're nervous, i understand. are you ready? here we go. right there. nice. easy pass. [ cheers and applause ] all right. >> imagine how you can inspire those around you to reach higher and complete their own education. and you can start small. start by volunteering at an

after school program, or helping high school kids fill out their college applications. show them the path that you took. >> i remember as i sat where you are sitting now, i had a very clear realization that i had no idea what was next for me. perhaps some of you feel that way right now. but this i can tell you. there is adventure ahead. >> hard work is the key to every success in your life. whether it's hard work as your career, hard work at your studies, at your marriage, hard work as a parent. there is joy in hard work. >> leaving here, you carry with you the respect of your fellow citizens. you will represent a nation with history and hope on our side. your charge now is not only to

protect our country, but to do what is right and just. >> i have also realized that education has been the only consistent part of my life for the last nine years. and it has offered me comfort. because education is the one thing that no one can take away from you. [ applause ] >> in case you're wondering, that is the former wife of tiger woods. and our best wishes as well to the students and parents of the class of 2014. and that's it for today. have a great week, and we'll see you next "fox news sunday." ♪

♪ >> tell us, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? ♪ >> in this second segment of our understanding the endtime series we're going to learn more about the beasts of daniel chapter number 7.