Jailed U.S. Hikers Await Sentence; Mexican Drug Cartel Leader Arrested; Plaxico Burress Signs with Jets
ROMANS: Two American hikers who have been jailed in Iran on espionage charges for two years now, they could be coming home soon. The verdict and a sentence are expected this week in the case against Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal. Their attorney says he hopes they will be sentenced to time served and sent home as a goodwill gesture at the start of Ramadan.</s>VELSHI: Police in Mexico arresting the leader of a violent drug cartel who ordered a hit on U.S. consulate worker. Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, better known as El Diego confessed to ordering the murders of 1,500 people. Authorities say he ordered an attack on a pregnant U.S. consulate employee and her husband last year. El Diego is the suspected leader of the La Linea gang, a cartel that smuggles drugs into the United States.</s>COSTELLO: A second chance for Plaxico Burress, the wide receiver just signed a one year, $3 million contract with the New York Jets. He's hoping to revive his career with his new NFL home after being released from prison. Burress spent 20 months in jail on a gun charge after he shot himself on the leg in a New York night club back in 2008.</s>VELSHI: A vote on the new debt deal is expected to happen this afternoon. The plan includes raising the country's borrowing limit in exchange for spending cuts. Now moments ago we heard from Senator Dick Durbin. Now let's head across the aisle, Arizona Senator John McCain joins us live from the Russell Rotunda. I don't know, Senator, did you and Senator Durbin just swap shirts because you're both wearing exactly the same colored shirts?</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Usually we do everything just exactly the same throughout our careers.</s>VELSHI: Senator McCain, we've been watching you carefully over the last several weeks and months in this debate. I just want to play for you an exchange you're very familiar with, an exchange you had with Senator Durbin over the weekend.</s>MCCAIN: The senator from Illinois believed that we are close to an agreement here.</s>DURBIN: I hope so.</s>MCCAIN: And does senator from Illinois agree that most likely that agreement will not have an increase in taxes associated with it, at least in the short term?</s>DURBIN: I hope not.</s>MCCAIN: You hope so.</s>DURBIN: I hope there's revenue included in any agreement.</s>VELSHI: All right, first of all, that exchange is characterized and unique by virtue of the fact you were speaking to each other like gentlemen. But I know you're both veterans of this - of this whole thing. I couldn't tell over the course of the last few days who were you frustrated with? Because it sounds like you were more frustrated by the very fiscal conservative side of the Republican Party and the Tea Party. And you actually called them a few names earlier. I want to get a sense of who you think was intransigent in this discussion?</s>MCCAIN: Well, I think both sides were intransigent, but I was also of the firm belief that proposal a couple weeks ago that Senator McConnell brought out as you know, the quote, "last option," you look at this agreement that's pretty much along those lines. Look, I think that one of the things that's been kind of overblown is that I read from a "Wall Street Journal" editorial, "Wall Street Journal" is not exactly the most left leaning editorial in America. And it said, referred to hobbits in that they're not real characters, meaning that it's not real to think you're going to pass a balanced budget amendment through the Senate of the United States and get 20 democrat votes and you're not. I have supported a balanced budget and voted for it 13 times and I'm an advocate of it. But to demand something that is not possible, as part of this deal, frankly, was in other words a balanced budget amendment passed, not voted on. I'm glad we're going to vote on the balanced budget amendment. I hope we vote on it every day until it is passed. It's the only way we have to conclude this effort to get our spending under control.</s>VELSHI: But you are fully aware that it's -- there's no chance of that happening under a Democratic-controlled Senate with a Democratic president?</s>MCCAIN: No and we own one third of the government as you know. That's why I think that this agreement we've reached is very -- pretty much a success, but it's also compromise. But the fact we're not going to hike taxes, the fact that cuts in spending are going to be larger than the increase in the spending that we will not be -- we will have a committee that I think will be credible. But I have it to tell you, I'm worried about the size of defense cuts that may be contemplated, but that doesn't mean I'm, therefore, rejecting the agreement.</s>VELSHI: Some of your Republican colleagues, though, who do have certain problems as you have with defense, but certain problems with other areas who don't think things have gone far enough have said they won't support this. At some point, you are all elected to go there and come up with tough compromises. This was certainly about the toughest compromise that you guys have had to deal with in the last year or so. What do you say to those members?</s>MCCAIN: Well, I say to them, if they can come up with a viable proposal that will get a majority vote in both Houses and signed by the president, I would be more than happy to examine it. I'd also tell them to look at what the markets were telling us all last week. It wasn't a matter of how we pay our debts or -- it was a matter of the world's financial markets basically clavering (ph). But finally what they should worry about more than anything else is the view in which the American people hold us and their low opinion of us because we are failing to do what they think is our job. And, by the way, they're right.</s>VELSHI: Senator, I know you follow the economy very closely. You know, you saw those GDP numbers on Friday that indicate slow growth in the second quarter and extremely dangerously slow growth in the first three months of this year. Are you worried all of this talk about pullback and spending, even though this bill doesn't actually do it immediately -- all of this talk about pullback and spending is dangerous and could put us on the path to another recession?</s>MCCAIN: No, I think we've proven with the so-called stimulus that the Keynesian approach has been an abject failure. I mean, they said that unemployment would be a maximum of eight percent after we passed it. It's clear that keeping -- pumping money into the system, which then increases the debt and deficit is not the way to go. But it is jobs and so we need to cut the corporate tax rate. We need to -- I'd like to see a two-year more moratorium except for emergency on government regulations. We've got to give investors the confidence they will have a stable environment in which to invest and create jobs.</s>VELSHI: Senator McCain, good to have you on the show. Thank you for being with us.</s>MCCAIN: Thanks for having me on.</s>VELSHI: Give Senator Durbin his shirt back.</s>ROMANS: I know, they're wearing the same colored shirt and tie today.</s>VELSHI: Totally wearing the same shirt, I'm telling you. And -- they're not on TV at the same time so you can't tell.</s>VELSHI: Senator John McCain of Arizona. But it's a unique colored shirt wouldn't you say? To see two guys in the same shirt, on the same day.</s>COSTELLO: I like what he says, unique shirts, because Ali wears a unique shirt nearly every day.</s>VELSHI: But you don't wear the same shirt I'm wearing, that's the thing. Anyway, good discussions with them.</s>ROMANS: Our question of the day pegged off the debt ceiling agreement. We want to know, who won last night? Wall Street, Main Street, someone else?</s>COSTELLO: Oh, yes. We want you to send us an e-mail, send us a tweet, tell us on Facebook. We'll read your comments throughout the morning.