Sunday Shows preview: Boehner, McDonough, Panetta and more

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will sit down with Chris Wallace of “Fox News Sunday” at a time when tensions within the GOP are readily apparent.

The party is struggling with how to square two imperatives. How, practically-speaking, can GOP lawmakers keep the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funded while, at the same time, blocking President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, which have lifted the threat of deportation from up to five million illegal immigrants?

Democrats are demanding a “clean” DHS funding bill. Such an idea is anathema to many Republicans. There is no obvious way out of the impasse, although whatever Boehner says to Wallace about the issue will be carefully parsed across Washington.

Elsewhere, foreign policy will dominate many of the Sunday shows, after a week in which the White House’s efforts to secure new war powers for the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) met with a chilly reception on Capitol Hill. 

{mosads}The question of the authorization for use of military force (AUMF), and of the broader fight against ISIS, will be center-stage on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” which will feature Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the same panel’s ranking member, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) . 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) will appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” while Leon Panetta, who served as Obama’s Defense Secretary from 2011 to 2013, will appear on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

On ABC’s “This Week,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) will square off against Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Kinzinger serves on the House Armed Services Committee; Schiff is ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee.

Many of those same interviewees may want to weigh in on Saturday’s events in Denmark, when two people were shot dead in Copenhagen in two separate incidents. 

The first attack is being treated by authorities as an act of terrorism, since it targeted a cafe and cultural center at which free speech was being debated and where a controversial cartoonist, Lars Vilks, was present. 

There is broad speculation that the two attacks may be connected but that had not been confirmed as of late Saturday night.

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough will appear on “Face the Nation,” where he is likely to face questions on all of the above — and more.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) will be a guest on the same show, discussing the imminent 50th anniversary of the Selma marches. Lewis was savagely beaten by Alabama state troopers on “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965.

Those tumultuous events are also at the forefront of popular culture at the moment, thanks in part to the acclaim accorded to the recently-released movie, “Selma.”

Among other guests on the Sunday Shows, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore will appear on “Fox News Sunday” to talk about his opposition to same-sex marriage in the state.

“Meet the Press” will also have an unusual guest: Comedian Dana Carvey will join host Chuck Todd to talk about the 40th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live.”