Sunday Breakfast Menu, April 28

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

National security and foreign affairs share the limelight on the Sunday political shows this week, featuring conversations about the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings and the response to new developments in Syria’s civil war.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” will interview Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a member of the Armed Services Committee. After the acknowledgement from the White House on Thursday that Syria may have used chemical weapons against civilians, he will discuss whether President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has crossed a line to provoke American intervention.

Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, who serves on the Intelligence and Homeland Security Committees, and Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota and a Muslim, will also appear on the program, talking about whether warning signs were overlooked before the Boston Marathon bombings.

A few days after the dedication of George W. Bush’s presidential library, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, will reflect on his time working with Mr. Bush. Karen P. Hughes, a former Bush adviser; Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota; and Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, will join NBC’s panel.

Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, will weigh in on national security in the wake of the attacks in Boston on “Fox News Sunday.” Michael B. Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, shares his thoughts on Syria.

CBS’s “Face the Nation” looks at the latest developments in Boston and Syria with Senators Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina; Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri; and Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia.

Three high-ranking members of the House Intelligence Committee will appear on ABC’s “This Week” to talk about Boston and Syria: Representatives Mike Rogers of Michigan, the committee’s chairman; C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the ranking Democrat; and Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois.

Two other members of the congressional intelligence committees â€" Senator Dan Coats, Republican of Indiana, and Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California â€" will be on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Also on the program are Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of homeland security, and R. Nicholas Burns, a former under secretary of state.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee; Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee; Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah; and Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, will join CNN’s panel.

Mr. Thompson will also appear on TV One’s “Washington Watch” at 11 a.m. Eastern with Mayor Michael A. Nutter of Philadelphia, discussing the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Representative Adam Smith of Washington, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, is scheduled to join C-Span’s “Newsmakers,” talking about defense.

Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, will be on Univision’s “Al Punto” at 10 a.m. Eastern. Along with Cecilia Muñoz, President Obama’s domestic policy adviser, Mr. Cuellar will discuss national security in the wake of the Boston attacks.

On Bloomberg’s “Capitol Gains” at noon Eastern, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, talks about his objections to the broad proposal to overhaul immigration currently before the Senate. The committee will begin examining the bill in May. Steven VanRoekel, the government’s chief information officer, will also be on the program, discussing the challenge of orchestrating technology for millions of federal workers.

And Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, was on Bloomberg’s “Political Capital” on Friday. Repeats of the program will be broadcast throughout the weekend.

Obama and G.O.P. Spar Over Direction of Cuts

WASHINGTON - President Obama sparred with Congressional Republicans on Saturday over who was to blame for long flight delays this week but neither side moved closer to a consensus on how to minimize the broader impact of federal spending cuts on the public.

A day after Congress voted to avert further air traffic slowdowns, Mr. Obama chided lawmakers for looking out for their own interests as frequent fliers rather than caring for less privileged Americans harmed by other spending cuts.

Republicans responded by accusing the president of deliberately provoking a crisis for political purposes.

The back-and-forth underscored the partisan divide over the so-called sequester, a series of automatic spending cuts that both parties agreed to in a failed effort to force the two sides to come together to craft a more judicious plan to rein in huge deficits. When furloughs of air traffic controllers resulted in a cascade of airport backups this week, lawmakers rushed to authorize the transportation secretary to move around funds.

“This week, the sequester hurt travelers, who were stuck for hours in airports and on planes, and rightly frustrated by it,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address taped in advance and aired on Saturday. “Maybe because they fly home each weekend, the members of Congress who insisted these cuts take hold finally realized that they actually apply to them too.”

In the Republican response, Representative Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania, chairman of the House transportation committee, asked why the controllers were furloughed.

“Because,” he said, “there are some in the Obama administration who thought inflicting pain on the public would give the president more leverage to avoid making necessary spending cuts and to impose more tax hikes on the American people.”

Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Shuster in their addresses called for replacing the sequester with a more targeted plan to avoid such indiscriminate effects, but the White House and Congressional Republicans have starkly different ideas about what such a plan should look like.

It hardly went unnoticed in Washington that the two sides have not managed to come together to ameliorate the impact of budget cuts on many other Americans. The air passengers inconvenienced this week, however, included business travelers and relatively better off Americans with the ear of their representatives.

Mr. Obama pointed out that the sequester continues to affect children kicked out of Head Start, seniors deprived of Meals on Wheels and military families cut off from services.

“We can’t just keep putting Band-Aids on every cut,” he said. “It’s not a responsible way to govern. There is only one way to truly fix the sequester: by replacing it before it causes further damage.”

Mr. Shuster said the Obama administration always had enough flexibility to avert the airport bottlenecks of the last week. “This episode is yet another demonstration of why we need to replace the president’s sequester with smarter, more responsible cuts,” he said. “The American people deserve better, and leaders in Washington have an obligation to respect your time and money.”