All Monitor Breakfast

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano uses humor to address questions about the storm of criticism over new, less restrictive rules for allowing passengers to carry knives onto airplanes.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D) and Sen. Rand Paul (R), in separate forums Tuesday, struck common ground on some of the thorniest issues surrounding immigration reform. Is a bipartisan deal close?

Two gun-control measures that could pass Congress include improving background check system and cracking down on illegal sales, says Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R) at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast on Wednesday.

GOP Rep. Bob Goodlatte outlines a possible sequence of steps on immigration reform, at the end of which undocumented immigrants could seek US citizenship, standing in line with all others. A compromise both right and left can support?

One of the concerns for Pakistan is 'how responsible' the US exit from Afghanistan will be, said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, at a Feb. 5 breakfast meeting.

Deborah Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board sees collision-avoidance technology as the future of auto safety. As for a move from NTSB to a post in Obama's cabinet? She declines to say.

Deborah Hersman, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, is a top candidate for the cabinet post, reports say. But she wouldn't comment directly at a Monitor breakfast Wednesday.

Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, says the investigation is ongoing into the cause of two battery fires on board Boeing 787 Dreamliners, but avoided categorically calling the lithium-ion batteries unsafe.

At a Monitor breakfast Tuesday, Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman rejected perceptions that her government publicly condemns drone strikes while privately cooperating with the US on them.

Would new gun restrictions actually work? Are they constitutional? These questions frame the deeper debate between gun rights defenders such as NRA's David Keene and gun control advocates like Sen. Charles Schumer.

Opponents of the National Rifle Association 'hope to use emotion' to achieve an 'antifirearm agenda' in the wake of the school shootings last month in Newtown, Conn., NRA President David Keene said Thursday.

Always colorful, Foster Friess, who helped finance Republican Rick Santorum's presidential bid, expounded on gay rights, taxing the rich, and the alleged GOP 'war on women' at a Monitor breakfast.

Dragging out negotiations on the debt ceiling could potentially harm the US and global economies, not to mention tax and entitlement reforms, says Rep. Sander Levin (D) of Michigan.

Michigan's Rep. Sander Levin, top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, says slow-walking the debt ceiling would also undermine prospects for immigration overhaul and tax reform.

Democratic budget leader Rep. Chris Van Hollen urges that the national debt ceiling be raised as part of the year-end talks to avoid the 'fiscal cliff,' rather than waiting until late winter to address it.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s top diplomat in the United States says that Israel's plans for a settlement in a sensitive area is a ploy to undermine a future Palestinian state.

Resolving the fiscal cliff this year may require Speaker John Boehner to take to the House floor a deal that a majority of Republicans will reject – a move that could risk his speakership in the next Congress, says the Democrats' Rep. Chris Van Hollen.

Settlement plans east of Jerusalem – decried by the US and Europeans – were meant to punish Palestinians and satisfy domestic political pressure in Israel, Ambassador Michael Oren says.

Debt-fighting duo Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who led Obama's bipartisan debt-reduction panel, speaking at a Monitor breakfast Wednesday warn partisans in Congress against going over the fiscal cliff in a bid to gain a political advantage.

Former chairs of Obama's debt commission, Alan Simpson (R) and Erskine Bowles (D), said at the Monitor breakfast Wednesday they see just a one-third likelihood that the White House and congressional Republicans will reach a deal by year's end to avert the fiscal cliff.