In the wake of this weekend's Iranian nuclear agreement, Secretary of State John Kerry says Israel is “safer than it was yesterday.” 
 
 “Israel is threatened by what is going on in Iran, but I believe that from this day, Israel is safer,” Kerry said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." 
 
 Kerry said the deal will set the Iranian nuclear program back, which is good for Israel because it will stave off Iranian development of nuclear weapons. 
 
 "We're are going to expand the amount of time in which they can break out, rather than narrow it," Kerry said. "We're going to have insights to their program that we didn't have before. Isreal, if you didnt have these things, would be seeing Iran to continue on a daily basis to narrow the breakdown time." 
 
 “I believe Israel will, in fact, be safer, provided we make sure these sanctions do not get lifted in a way that reduces the pressure on Iran, and I don't think they will be,” Kerry said. 
 
 Read more about: John Kerry, Iran, Israel ||||| Sarah Palin is responding to MSNBC's Martin Bashir's harsh comments about her for the first time, calling them vile and evil, and slammed the "media elite bubble" for hypocrisy. 
 
 "That's the executive hypocrisy that is so prevalent in that media elite bubble, where it depends on the target of the vile rants, it doesn’t depend on what their rant itself actually is and conservative women are a target of them," the former Republican governor from Alaska said in an interview that aired on "Fox News Sunday" when asked about the lack of action against Bashir. 
 
 Television networks, she said, are "condoning those type of statements" and continued to criticize them for hypocrisy. 
 
 "That's hypocrisy, that’s a given, though, when a conservative woman says something that they take offense, they usually just kind of pooh-pooh it, laugh it off as no big deal," Palin said, adding that she's moved on. 
 
 "In a case like this, I don’t have to accept his words, his vile, evil comments, so they don’t have to affect me. I move on and I charge forth," Palin said. 
 
 During his program on Nov. 15., Bashir called Palin "a world class idiot" for comparing the U.S.'s debt to China to slavery and read a passage from a diary of a former plantation manager that described forcing slaves to eat feces. Bashir issued an on-air apology last week, but Palin defended her comments Sunday. 
 
 "That’s funny because Bashir has invoked the analogy of slavery also. The definition of slavery is to be beholden to a master, and we will be beholden when that note is due," Palin said. "When we have taken from our children and grandchildren and borrowed from China and other foreign countries in order to pay for our wants today." 
 
 But Palin said she "obviously" accepts Bashir's apology. 
 
 "Who am I to not accept an apology? Everyone must humble themselves and accept that offer of apology," she said. 
 
 But Palin slammed the media once again for "want[ing] to say such a thing and then get the attention that they were seeking after they’ve said it, and then they want to call and apologize to me in private." 
 
 Read more about: Sarah Palin, Media, Martin Bashir ||||| House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer says the Obamacare rollout had been a huge disappointment to its supporters, but that law itself still had hope. 
 
 “I don’t think Obamacare has failed, access to Obamacare has failed,” the Maryland Democrat said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” 
 
 Hoyer said the substance of the law had yet to be tested, and there was no reason to scrap the program. 
 
 
 
 “We don’t need to start over, the American people don’t want to start over,” he said. “Over time, the American public is going to see it works well. Millions of people have already been helped,” he said. 
 
 
 
 Of the rocky rollout, Hoyer said the process had been “terrible” and “we’re all very disappointed.” 
 
 Read more about: Steny Hoyer, Obamacare ||||| Secretary of State John Kerry says the Iranian nuclear deal is based on verification, not trust with Iran. 
 
 “Everybody has a right to be skeptical because there are indications that there are people in Iran who have wanted to pursue a weapons program, Kerry said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS’s "Face the Nation." “That's why we don't take anything at face value. That's why you don't take it for granted.” 
 
 Asked if he were skeptical whether Iran would actually comply with the signed deal, Kerry said trust wasn’t necessary, and no one was expecting Iran to “turn over a new leaf.” 
 
 (WATCH: Obama remarks on Iran nuclear deal) 
 
 “There's nothing built on trust,” Kerry said. “You don't have to trust the people you're dealing with, you have to have a mechanism put in place whereby you know exactly what you're getting and you know exactly what they're doing." 
 
 Kerry compared the negotiations to dealing with the Soviet Union in terms of a lack of trust between negotiators. 
 
 "We've done arms control agreements in other parts of the world," Kerry said. "You don't trust. It's not based on trust. It's based on verification." 
 
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 Read more about: John Kerry, Iran
– If you're finding yourself a bit wary of the nuclear deal struck with Iran last night because, hey, why are we suddenly trusting these guys? ... John Kerry would like to reassure you: The deal is "not based on trust. It's based on verification," he said on CBS' Face the Nation today, according to Politico. "There's nothing built on trust. You don't have to trust the people you're dealing with, you have to have a mechanism put in place whereby you know exactly what you're getting and you know exactly what they're doing," Kerry explained. Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, per Politico: On ABC's This Week, Kerry added that "this is not the moment to increase sanctions" on Iran, and that he's confident Congress will see things his way. "I believe Congress will recognize that this deal actually has a great deal of benefit in it," he said. And on CNN's State of the Union, he added that the deal makes Israel "safer than it was yesterday." Lawmakers, however, expressed skepticism about the deal on various talk shows, and on State of the Union, former CIA director Michael Hayden says he fears the interim agreement (which he considers sub-par) will end up becoming "a permanent agreement." Steny Hoyer may be a Democrat, but that didn't stop him from calling the ObamaCare rollout "terrible" today, also on Face the Nation. The House minority whip acknowledged, "We're all very disappointed," but said the law itself has not failed. Earlier this month, Martin Bashir called Palin a "world class idiot" on MSNBC (his reasoning: She compared US debt to slavery). He's since apologized, but Palin nonetheless called him out on Fox News Sunday. "I don’t have to accept his words, his vile, evil comments, so they don’t have to affect me. I move on and I charge forth," she said.