Week In The News

46:29

April 08, 2011

Budget showdown in Washington. A major 9-11 trial is sent to Guantanamo. A full airliner rips open in flight. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

House Speaker John Boehner listens as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid speaks outside the White House in Washington, Thursday. (AP)

All showdown, all the time in Washington this week. Budget battle headlines all over. Government shutdown on the line. And issues of abortion, greenhouse gases, financial regulation, health care reform all wound up in the fight.

The Tea Party came to chop spending, they want to chop policy too. Democrats argue they’ve cut enough. Republicans say no way. And nobody wants the blame for a shutdown.

We’ve got more quake in Japan, maybe a stalemate in Libya, a U.S. airliner ripping open in flight.

This hour On Point: our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
- Tom Ashbrook
Guests:

Ron Brownstein, political director for Atlantic Media and columnist for the National Journal. He's author of "The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America."
Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent for the Washington Post.
Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

This program aired on April 8, 2011.