Published at 1:55 p.m. ET: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sharply criticized Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for not deploying U.S. forces so they could rapidly respond to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

“It’s one of the more bizarre statements I have ever seen in my years on this committee,” McCain told Dempsey, accusing him of failing to place U.S. aircraft ahead of time at bases such as Suda Bay, Crete, where they could  have reached Benghazi within 90 minutes on the day of the attack.

Given the threats and attacks on foreign diplomats in the weeks leading up to Sept. 11, 2012, McCain contended, Dempsey ought to have placed forces closer to Benghazi.

McCain called Dempsey’s testimony "simply false" regarding U.S. deployments to deter or respond to an attack in Benghazi.

Dempsey “didn’t take into account the threats to that consulate—and that’s why four Americans died,” McCain angrily told the general. In the Sept. 11 assault on the facility, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods and Sean Smith, were killed.

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The Arizona Republican also contended that “it was almost predictable” that “bad things were going to happen in Libya” in the weeks leading up to the attack because the fledgling government was too feeble to maintain control of the country – and he blamed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and President Barack Obama for not deploying a strong U.S. military presence in the country to help keep order.

For his part Dempsey told McCain that “we never received” a request from the State Department to place forces closer to Benghazi to be poised to respond to an attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility.

“So it’s the State Department’s fault?” McCain asked.

“I’m not blaming the State Department,” Dempsey replied. But he said he was concerned on the day of the Benghazi attack about an array of possible assaults on U.S. facilities not only in Libya but in Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan, and other locations in the Islamic world.

Dempsey, along with Panetta, was testifying Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Panetta told the panel there were two short-duration attacks that occurred six hours apart. “We were not dealing with a prolonged or continuous assault which could have been brought to an end by a U.S. military response,” Panetta said.

Both Dempsey and Panetta said the best situation would have been to have had U.S. forces on the ground before the attack to defend the facility.

Two other Republican members of the committee, Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, pressed Panetta and Dempsey on how many times they directly briefed Obama on the attack on the day it occurred – the answer was once.

Both Ayotte and Graham implied that Obama ought to have asked more questions and been more involved in keeping apprised of the events in Benghazi in real time. On her Twitter account, Ayotte said while the hearing was in progress, “POTUS outsourced #Benghazi response.”

While the attacks were underway, Graham asked, “did the president show any curiosity about how is this going, what kind of assets do you have helping these people?”

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Panetta replied – citing his experience a former White House chief of staff, “The purpose of staff is to be able to get that kind of information and those staff (members) were working with us.” He added, “The president is well informed about what is going on.”

Graham also questioned Dempsey about Ambassador Stevens’s Aug. 15 cable warning the State Department that the facility in Benghazi couldn’t defend itself if it came under attack. Dempsey told Graham that he was surprised that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not know about that cable.

In his testimony, Panetta said the Department of Defense and U.S. armed forces “did all that we could do in response to the attacks in Benghazi.” He explained that “armed UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones), AC-130 gunships, or fixed-wing fighters with the associated tanking – you’ve got to provide air re-fueling-- armaments – you’ve got to arm all the weapons before you put the on the planes” -- were not in the vicinity of Libya.

He said that even if he’d been able to deploy F-16 fighters or AC-130 gunships over Benghazi in time, “the mission still depends on accurate information about what targets they’re supposed to hit. And we had no forward air controllers there” and no communications with U.S. personnel on the ground.

He said, “because of the distance, it would have taken at least 9 to 12 hours, if not more, to deploy these forces to Benghazi. This was, pure and simple,  -- in the absence as I said of any kind of advance warning -- a problem of distance and time.”

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testifies on the attack on U.S facilities in Benghazi, Libya before the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 7, 2013 in Washington, D.C.

He explained that “unfortunately there were no specific indications of an imminent attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi. Without adequate warning, there was not enough time given the speed of the attack for armed military assets to respond.”

In his testimony Panetta also warned about the effects of the automatic spending cuts – called sequestration - that are mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act and are set to begin on March 1.

“If Congress fails to act and sequestration is triggered, and if we also must operate under a year-long continuing resolution (keeping spending at last year’s levels), we would be faced with a significant shortfall in operating funds for our active forces with only seven months remaining in the fiscal year,” he told the committee. “This will damage our national defense and compromise our ability to respond to crises in a dangerous world.”

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta came to the aid of former Sen. Chuck Hagel, the man President Barack Obama nominated to succeed him, saying on NBC’s Meet the Press, “The political knives were out for Chuck Hagel” during his confirmation hearing last week.

In nearly eight hours of testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee on Thursday, Hagel spent much time revising and clarifying his previous remarks – including a spontaneous error at the hearing itself on whether United States policy toward Iran’s nuclear weapons program was one of containment.

Panetta complained that the members of the committee spent too little time questioning Hagel about the current challenges the Defense Department faces, such as looming budget cuts, and spent too much time examining statements Hagel made in the past.

Panetta insisted to NBC’s Chuck Todd that Hagel was “absolutely” prepared to take his place leading the Defense Department.

Panetta’s backing of Hagel was seconded by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, who said “in helping prepare him for his confirmation hearings, we had several opportunities to talk about strategy. And I found him well-prepared and very thoughtful about it.”

As the Armed Services Committee prepares to hold a hearing Thursday on last September’s attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Panetta said he looked forward “to presenting what we know about what took place.” Congressional Republicans have questioned why there were no U.S. military aircraft or other forces in proximity to Benghazi that could have been dispatched to help defend Ambassador Chris Stevens and other US personnel. Stevens and three others were killed in the attack.

Addressing the Defense Department’s airlift and intelligence-sharing role in assisting the ongoing French military intervention in the North African nation of Mali, Panetta said, “We are now working with France to make sure that al Qaida has no place to hide, even in North Africa.”

Dempsey added that in North Africa “the regimes that you used to maintain control over that space that would, in fact, be part of the solution of keeping al Qaida and its affiliates at bay are no longer there.”

The popular uprisings of the 2011 Arab Spring, Dempsey said, “stripped that away” leaving “ungoverned space” or “a period at which geography is less governed than it used to be.” That lack of control has allowed jihadist groups such as al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to flourish.

Turning to Iran and its nuclear program, Panetta said, “The intelligence we have is they have not made the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon. The regime in Tehran is enriching uranium.  They continue to do that.”

He added, “I can't tell you they are, in fact, pursuing a weapon, because that's not what intelligence says they're doing right now. But every indication is they want to continue to increase their nuclear capability. And that's a concern. And that's what we're asking them to stop doing.”

Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that the Obama administration is “would be prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership,” but that talks would need to be serious, have an agreed-upon agenda, and not be merely an exercise.

On the threat of spending cuts, known in Capitol language as “sequester,” scheduled to start on March 1 that are mandated by the Budget Control Act, Panetta said, “If Congress stands back and allows sequester to take place, I think it would really be a shameful and irresponsible act.”

He added that the spending cuts this year – amounting to about 12 percent of Pentagon outlays apart from overseas operations – would “badly damage the readiness of the United States of America.”

Panetta, who served as head of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton and as chairman of the House Budget Committee in the late 1980s, said, “As somebody who's worked with budgets throughout my life, in order to deal with the deficit problem, you've got to deal with entitlements. You have to deal with revenues. And you have to deal with discretionary (spending).”

Although Republicans such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona have accused Obama of failing to take the lead in finding a way to avoid the cuts required by the Budget Control Act, Panetta said, “I think he's pushing as hard as he can…. The president of the United States has indicated the concern about sequester. He's indicated his concern about maintaining a strong national defense.  And he's proposed a solution to this. The ball is in Congress's court. They have got to take action to delay sequester.”

Updated 4:32 p.m. - Hillary Rodham Clinton left the State Department on Friday"confident about the direction that we have set," handing off the secretary of state's job to former Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

Kerry took the oath of office, administered by Supreme Court Jusice Elena Kagan, late Friday afternoon. The private ceremony was closed to reporters. 

The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee takes over for Clinton, who resigned her position hours earlier after a four-year term as America's top diplomat.

In remarks at the diplomatic agency's Foggy Bottom headquarters, Clinton waxed about the familiar atmosphere at the State Department during her four years as secretary, an environment she said would extend to Kerry.

"Next week, I would expect that all of you will be as focused and dedicated for Secretary Kerry as you have been for me, and that you will continue to serve President Obama and our nation with the same level of professionalism and commitment that I have seen firsthand," she told throngs of department staff gathered for her remarks.

Clinton leaves office at the height of her popularity, and amid intrigue about what her political future might hold. She remained as coy as ever about her future intentions, making no reference toward that, and focusing her remarks instead on the diplomatic corps.

"I will be an advocate, from the outside, for the work that you continue to do here, and at [US]AID," she said.

"I am more optimistic today than when I was when I stood here four years ago. Because I have seen, day after day, the contributions our diplomats and development experts are making," she also said, later adding: "I leave this department confident about the direction that we have set."

Kerry was set to be sworn into office in a private ceremony later on Friday afternoon, and he'll inherit a number of complex foreign policy issues when he does.

Included among those vexing issues is the apparent terrorist attack against a U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey on Friday. Clinton, in her valedictory remarks, said that she had spoken to the ambassador to Turkey, and acknowledged the loss of "one of our foreign service nationals" in the attack.

Slideshow: A political life

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Hillary Clinton's life has taken her from first lady to senator to secretary of state.

Launch slideshow

Updated at 2:20p.m. ET: President Barack Obama’s choice to be secretary of state, Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass, testified Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one day after the same committee conducted a fractious hearing with current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over last September's attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Unlike Wednesday’s sometimes-contentious hearings, Republicans welcomed Kerry, who is currently the chairman of the same committee, warmly at the outset.

Sen. John McCain R-Ariz. joined Clinton and Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Mass. in introducing the nominee, with McCain praising him for “exemplary statesmanship” in his work on an accord to allow opening of normal diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995.

But while the hearing remained cordial, Kerry came under bipartisan pressure on the question of the civil war in Syria in which more than 60,000 have been killed.

Kerry has met several times over the years with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

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McCain, part of a bipartisan group of senators which just got back from a trip to the Mideast and visited camps where Syrian refugees are living, told Kerry they feel “an anger and frustration” and believe that the United States is indifferent to their suffering.

One Syrian teacher told McCain and the other senators, “This next generation of children will take revenge on those that that did not help them.” McCain added, “We are sowing the wind in Syria and we are going to reap the whirlwind.”

He said “We can do a lot more, without putting boots on the ground” – such as a no-fly zone – and he complained that “all I get, frankly, from the (Obama) administration is the fall of Assad is, quote, ‘inevitable.’ I agree, but what about what happens in the meantime?”

Another member of the delegation that toured the Middle East, Sen. Chris Coons, D- Del., complained to Kerry that U.S. humanitarian aid intended for Syrian refugees “has not reached the people on the ground.”

In response to both Coons and McCain, Kerry said “if you have a complete implosion of the state” in Syria after Assad’s fall, it would greatly increase the risk that Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal would fall into the wrong hands.

Kerry also said that “we need to change Bashar Assad’s calculation. Right now President Assad doesn’t think he’s losing -- and the opposition thinks it is winning.” Kerry said the goal of U.S. policy is a peaceful transition to a new government. He said he hoped to confer with the Russian government, a major supporter of Assad, and with others and “increase the readiness of President Assad to see that the die is cast, the handwriting is on the wall….”

Coons told Kerry, “We frankly face a very narrow window to make a difference on the ground in support of the opposition.”  

“I get it,” Kerry answered, saying he did not want to “wind up with them (members of the anti-Saddam Syrian opposition) blaming you” for not doing more to remove Assad from power. But Kerry voiced worry about who would control the country if Assad were forced out of power.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

Senator John Kerry, D-Mass., President Barack Obama's nominee for Secretary of State, speaks with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., before he testifies at the Senate Foreign Relations committee during his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Jan. 24, 2013.

The committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, asked Kerry about Obama’s nominee to be defense secretary, former Sen. Chuck Hagel and his support for Global Zero, a group which calls for the total abolition of nuclear weapons.

Kerry said Hagel would be “a strong secretary of defense secretary” and that Hagel would not weaken the U.S. nuclear arsenal which serves as a deterrent to an attack on the United States.

A world without any nuclear weapons, Kerry said, was a goal “worth aspiring to,” but “we’re not talking about today’s world” and it might take “many centuries” to achieve abolition of nuclear weapons.

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Kerry also addressed Iran's nuclear program.

“The president has made it definitive--we will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he said in his opening statement to the committee. “I repeat here today: our policy is not containment. It is prevention and the clock is ticking on our efforts to secure responsible compliance.”

He added, “No one should mistake our resolve to reduce the nuclear threat.”

He said Obama “knows that American foreign policy is not defined by drones and deployments alone. We cannot allow the extraordinary good we do to save and change lives to be eclipsed entirely by the role we have had to play since September 11th, a role that was thrust upon us.”

Referring to the impasse over reducing budget deficits and the growing national debt, Kerry said to the committee members that “the first priority of business which will affect my credibility as a diplomat – and our credibility as nation – as we work to help other countries create order, is whether America at last puts its own fiscal house in order.”

In his opening statement, Kerry showed one brief moment of emotion. His voice shook when he referred to his father, who was a Foreign Service officer. Kerry said he was proud that “the Senate is in my blood – but equally proud that so too is the Foreign Service. My father’s work under presidents both Democrat and Republican took me and my siblings around the world for a personal journey that brought home the sacrifices” that American diplomats abroad make or their country.

Updated at 2:20p.m. ET: In a hearing marked by sometimes sharp and pointed exchanges, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee she took responsibility for not adequately protecting U.S. personnel in the Sept. 11 attack on a diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. 

Defending the administration’s immediate handling of the attack, Clinton clashed at times with Republicans over the account the administration gave in the initial days after Sept. 11.

Clinton said the Obama administration did not try to mislead the American people about the cause of the attacks. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” she said as she sparred with Sen. Ron Johnson, R- Wisc.

She angrily told Johnson that at this stage it did not really matter what the precise origins or motives of the attack were: “What difference at this point does it make?”

She told Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican, “we did not have a clear picture” of all that was going on in Benghazi although she did acknowledge that senators had “legitimate questions” about the administration’s account.

Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., -- after telling Clinton “we are proud of you” and that all over the world “you are viewed with admiration and respect” -- delivered a blistering criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the events in Libya.

“There are many questions that are unanswered and the answers you’ve given this morning are frankly not satisfactory to me,” McCain told Clinton. He added “the American people and the families of these four brave Americans still haven’t gotten the answers they deserve.”

He asked Clinton whether she was aware of numerous warnings from Stevens and other Americans in Libya that the facility in Benghazi was not capable of resisting a sustained assault. He also said there had been other warning signs such as an attack on the British ambassador to Libya.

He angrily asked Clinton why Defense Department forces were not nearby to defend the Benghazi facility.

Last month a report issued by the Accountability Review Board (ARB) appointed by Clinton, blamed State Department officials for “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” that led to protection for the Benghazi facility that was “grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.”

In her response to McCain, Clinton said, as she did to other senators on the panel, that some additional information on the causes and circumstances of the attack is in the classified portions of the report issued by the ARB. Senators and Senate staff can read the classified portions of the ARB report, but the public cannot.

And she blamed members of Congress for holding up additional aid to Libya that might make the country more secure and less chaotic. 

Clinton was testifying Wednesday afternoon on Benghazi before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

In his questioning of Clinton Wednesday morning, Sen. Rand Paul, R- Ky., told her, “I’m glad that you’re accepting responsibility. I think that ultimately with your leaving, you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11, and I really mean that. Had I been president at the time and I found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you did not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post.”

He added, “It’s a failure of leadership” which cost the Americans in Benghazi their lives. “I think it’s good that you’re accepting responsibility-- because no one else is.”

Paul also argued that U.S. personnel ought to never have been sent to Benghazi “in a war zone” without a military guard. “You shouldn’t send them in with the same kind of embassy staff that you have in Paris,” he added. 

Clinton replied that all four State Department officials criticized in the ARB report for their roles on the Benghazi events had been removed from their jobs and placed on administrative leave. “The ARB (report) made very clear that the level of responsibility for the failures that they outlined was set at the assistant secretary level and below.”

The furor over the Benghazi attack helped derail one possible nominee to replace Clinton at the State Department, UN ambassador Susan Rice, whom Republicans assailed for using administration talking points that portrayed the incident as a spontaneous response to an inflammatory anti-Islamic video.

But Clinton told the committee that in the hours and days after the attack, “I was not focused on talking points” and “I wasn’t involved in the talking points process.”

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In her opening statement, Clinton told the committee, “As I have said many times since September 11, I take responsibility.  Nobody is more committed to getting this right.  I am determined to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger, and more secure.”

Clinton's voice choked with emotion as she recalled the return of “those flag-draped caskets” from the Americans killed in Benghazi and put her arms “around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters” of those killed. 

Clinton also used her testimony to deliver a vigorous call for continued U.S. involvement in the North African nation of Mali where the Obama administration is aiding French efforts to defeat Islamic jihadist forces.

She told the committee that the United States cannot allow Mali to become a safe haven for the group Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), warning of the risk of AQIM attacks on the United States itself.

Clinton also said she could not confirm reports that some of the terrorists involved in last week’s Algeria hostage taking were also involved in the Benghazi attack but called it a "new thread" to follow.

She did say that there is no doubt that Algerian terrorists have weapons they obtained from depots in Libya that were opened up and “liberated” after the dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled, with U.S. and NATO help, in 2011.

Gary Cameron / Reuters, file

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks about the hostage situation in Algeria during a joint news conference with Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida (not pictured) after their meeting at the State Department in Washington Jan. 18, 2013.

Clinton said she had accepted the ARBs recommendations for improvements in security procedures and had asked her subordinates “to ensure that all 29 of them are implemented quickly and completely.” She said these changes are designed to “reduce the chances of another Benghazi happening again.”

On Thursday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold its confirmation hearing for Clinton’s successor, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who is the committee’s chairman and is likely to be confirmed without any opposition.

First Read confirms that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will remain in her job during President Obama's second term, according to an administration official.

The news was first reported by the Washington Post.

To recap the cabinet shuffle so far:
Cabinet secretaries remaining:
Napolitano (DHS)
Eric Holder (Justice)
Kathleen Sebelius (HHS)
Eric Shinseki (Veterans Affairs)

Leaving:
Hillary Clinton at State (John Kerry nominated)
Leon Panetta at Defense (Chuck Hagel nominated)
Tim Geithner at Treasury (Jack Lew nominated)
Hilda Solis at Labor
Lisa Jackson at EPA

Jason Reed / Reuters

Sen. John Kerry waves at the end of his speech during the final session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., on September 6.

Updated at 7:01 a.m. ET: When he ran for president, many in the GOP slammed Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., pilloried for his late opposition to the Vietnam War and his famed flip on the conflict in Iraq. But, as criticism mounted against U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as the apparent frontrunner to become the next secretary of State, Kerry was publicly embraced by Republican colleagues in the Senate as a comparatively slam-dunk candidate to replace Hillary Clinton.

Now that Rice has withdrawn her nomination to the post, as NBC News reported exclusively on Thursday, all eyes turn to the onetime Democratic nominee. An official close to the process told NBC's Andrea Mitchell late Thursday that Kerry is now almost certain to get the job. "There were two people on the list," the person said. "Two minus one is one." 

In her withdrawal letter to the president, Rice said she was convinced her nomination would prove "lengthy, disruptive and costly" as Republicans have raised questions about her role in the public response to the 9/11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.  The exclusive NBC News interview with Rice aired Thursday on Rock Center with Brian Williams.

In a statement, Kerry praised Rice as an "extraordinarily capable and dedicated public servant" and alluded to his own past political battles.

"As someone who has weathered my share of political attacks and understands on a personal level just how difficult politics can be, I've felt for her throughout these last difficult weeks, but I also know that she will continue to serve with great passion and distinction," he said. 

EXCLUSIVE: Rice drops out of running for secretary of state

Elected to the Senate in 1984, Kerry rose to national prominence as a foreign policy expert when he returned to the Senate after his failed 2004 presidential bid. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee since 2009, he has made high-profile visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan and helped negotiate the new arms treaty with Russia that was signed in 2010.

Respected in the upper chamber and nationally as a shaper of the nation's foreign policy, Republicans have indicated that Kerry would face little opposition to be confirmed to the secretary of State post. "I think John Kerry would be an excellent appointment and would be easily confirmed by his colleagues," said Republican Susan Collins, R-Maine, late last month. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, a close ally of former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, declared that Kerry would have "an easy time" being confirmed in the Senate. 

Kerry's confirmation would likely not come without some minor re-litigation of past controversies.  One of Congress's richest members, he was painted as an out-of-touch patrician by his presidential foes. The onetime Navy lieutenant was criticized by opponents during his campaign for his high-profile protests of the Vietnam War, including his nationally-covered challenge to a congressional panel in 1971 to defend the deaths of men "for a mistake."

Kerry worked closely with the president in the just-finished election, playing Romney in debate preparations and had been seen as a potential choice to head either the State Department or the Department of Defense. Earlier today a top Pentagon official told NBC News that former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel appeared to be the likely choice for secretary of Defense.

But the main headache for Democrats if Kerry is appointed will be the triggering of a special election in Massachusetts next year to replace him. Democrats recently celebrated the ousting of Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who won a January 2010 special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Elizabeth Warren bested Brown in the heavily blue state by a margin of 54 percent to Brown's 46 percent.

If Kerry is picked, Brown will be viewed as a formidable Republican candidate to replace him. A wider bench of Democrats, including former Senate candidate Martha Coakley, may vie for the nomination.

But whoever wins the potential replacement race would have a grueling path, as would voters weary of statewide contests. Another special election would be the state's second in three years, and Kerry's successor would be up for re-election again in 2014.

Updated 5:20 p.m. - Senate Republicans managed to achieve their goal of blocking U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice from becoming the next secretary of state after Rice, on Thursday, withdrew her name from consideration by President Barack Obama.

Republicans were more measured in their responses to the withdrawal than they had been in their earlier criticism of Rice, whose prospective nomination had come under fire for her role in publicly explaining the Obama administration’s assessment of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

"I respect Ambassador Rice’s decision. President Obama has many talented people to choose from to serve as our next Secretary of State," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement.

Related: Rice drops out of running for secretary of state

Graham, along with Sens. John McCain, Ariz., and Kelly Ayotte, N.H., had led an effort to pre-empt Obama from naming Rice as the successor to outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"I respect Susan Rice's decision and appreciate her commitment to public service," Ayotte said in a statement. "However, my concerns regarding the terrorist attack in Benghazi go beyond any one individual."

Rice told NBC News in an exclusive interview on Thursday that she no longer wished for Obama to consider her for the position. In a letter to the president, Rice said she feared a confirmation fight in the Senate "would be lengthy, disruptive and costly."  The full interview with Rice will air tonight on Rock Center with Brian Williams at 10 p.m ET.

McCain’s office said: “Senator McCain thanks Ambassador Rice for her service to the country and wishes her well.”

Each of the Republicans, though, expressed continued concern about the Benghazi incident in their statements, and said they would continue their efforts to probe the matter.

Obama said he has accepted Rice's decision, hailing her as an "extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant." He said Rice would continue to serve as U.N. ambassador, and as a member of his national security team.

The trio of Senate Republicans had vowed to work to block Rice's nomination if Obama settled upon the United Nations ambassador as his nominee, stemming from her explanation for the Benghazi attacks. Rice had appeared on public affairs shows the weekend after the attack to assert that the assault -- which left four Americans dead, including Amb. Christopher Stevens – to assert that it was the outgrowth of a spontaneous rally to protest an American video that was offensive to Islam.

An investigation in subsequent weeks revealed that the attack in Benghazi was actually a coordinated terrorist attack, which prompted pointed questions from Republicans about why the administration had first put Rice forth to assert otherwise. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney tried for a series of weeks to effectively tarnish Obama politically with the mixed public explanation.

McCain, Ayotte and Graham pressed the matter further after the election, winning a meeting with Rice last month amid speculation that Obama wished to name the trusted adviser to fill the top diplomatic job.

"If Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me," Obama said at a press conference following his re-election to rebuff the Republican troika. "And I'm happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador who had nothing to do with Benghazi, and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and besmirch her reputation is outrageous."

But there were indications that the critiques had started to wear on the public perceptions of Rice. In the NBC/WSJ poll released Wednesday, Rice was rated positively by 20 percent of respondents, while 24 percent of said they had a negative perception of her.

If President Barack Obama selects United Nations envoy Susan Rice to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he’ll face determined opposition from at least three Republican senators: John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Ayotte and Graham would each place a “hold” on Rice’s nomination if she were nominated, their aides told NBC News Tuesday. McCain's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The three GOP senators met with Rice Tuesday and said afterwards they still weren’t satisfied with the administration’s handling of the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi and Rice’s initial role in explaining that attack.

Related: Senators not satisfied with Rice's Benghazi story

If Rice were nominated and her nomination came to the Senate floor for a vote, it seems highly likely that with Democrats holding the majority in the new Congress, she’d be confirmed.

But her Republican opponents could use the Senate rules to try to prevent her nomination from coming to a floor vote.

A “hold” is an informal procedure by which a senator signals to his or her floor leader that he or she doesn’t want a bill or nomination to come to the floor. Holds have been used for years by senators to indicate that a nomination is so unacceptable to them that they’d try to filibuster it -- to stop it through endless debate -- if necessary.

“I would hold her nomination until I had additional answers to questions, and then I will render judgment," Ayotte told reporters after meeting with Rice.

When Graham was asked by Defense News if he would place a hold on Rice’s nomination, he said, “Oh, absolutely. I would place a hold on anybody who wanted to be promoted to any job who had a role in the Benghazi situation.” Graham’s office confirmed that account.

Graham told a press conference Tuesday after he, McCain and Ayotte met with Rice that “before anybody can make an intelligent decision about promoting someone involved in Benghazi, we need to do a lot more (investigating).”

But indicating they’d put a hold on a nomination does not mean that Rice’s opponents could themselves kill her nomination.

If Rice were nominated and if the Foreign Relations Committee reported her nomination to the full Senate, it would be up to Majority Leader Harry Reid to decide when to bring it to the floor for debate.

Susan Walsh / AP

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, center, flanked by fellow committee members, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., left, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., right, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012, following a meeting with UN Ambassador Susan Rice. Rice met with lawmakers to discuss statements she made about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya that left the ambassador and three other Americans dead.

If senators opposed to Rice were able to keep debating the nomination, and if Reid failed to muster 60 votes for cloture, bringing the debate to a close, then the nomination would essentially be dead.

It’s early in this battle, and it’s not clear there would be enough Republicans to sign onto a filibuster, but one Democratic Senate aide said Democrats would welcome the fight and are confident she would be confirmed. “People are happy to fight for her,” the aide said.

There are echoes here of the nomination battles of the Bush era. Democratic filibusters blocked, and ultimately killed, a number of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees and Bush’s nomination of John Bolton to be U.N. ambassador.

“I remember the John Bolton episode pretty well,” Graham told reporters Tuesday. “Democrats dug in their heels saying we're not gonna vote, we're not gonna consider this nomination until we get basic answers to our concerns.”

There were two cloture votes on Bolton’s nomination in 2005. He got 56 votes on one of them, four shy of the number needed to end debate and confirm him.

In some cases, a senator putting a hold on a nomination is enough to convince the majority leader or the chairman of the committee considering the nomination to not try to move ahead with it.

For example in December 2011 the Washington Post reported that Matthew Bryza, Obama's nominee to be ambassador to Azerbaijan, was "deemed insufficiently hostile to Armenia's enemies by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) and two Democratic senators with Armenian American constituencies, Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Robert Menendez (N.J.)."

Boxer and Menendez put a hold on his nomination, preventing or at least delaying a floor vote. Obama gave Bryza a recess appointment and renominated him.

But Boxer and Menendez continued to oppose him and the Post reported that Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., never scheduled a hearing on his nomination.

Sometimes a hold on a nomination is simply a way of trying to extract some specific policy change or administrative action from the executive branch.

For example, the Hill reported last year that Sen. David Vitter, R-La., announced he was lifting his hold on Obama’s nomination of Dan Ashe to head the Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service.

Vitter wanted speedier action from the Obama administration on approving deep-water drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico.

“I said I would lift it when we got to 15 permits,” Vitter said on June 1, 2011. “We finally reached that mark today, and I’m lifting my hold.”

But the stakes would be far higher if Obama nominated Rice, partly because it would be the first nomination battle since he won re-election last month.

NBC News’s Domenico Montanaro contributed to this story.

YAKOTA AFB, Japan — President Barack Obama spoke with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi for the third time in a 24-hour period while flying back from a trip to southeast Asia aboard Air Force One.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said the call was to continue the discussions both presidents have had about Egypt's ability to help end the rocket-fire in Gaza. 

"He also underscored that President Morsi's efforts reinforce the important role that President Morsi and Egypt play on behalf of regional security and the pursuit of broader peace between the Palestinians and Israelis," Rhodes said of the call, which occurred en route a refueling stop in Japan following Obama's three-day trip overseas.

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This call comes as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes her way to the region to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Palestinian and Egyptian leaders. It is unclear about whether she will sit down with Morsi while in the Middle East.

Rhodes said the president has made clear that the primary objective at this moment is the deescalation of violence, and commended Morsi for sharing that goal.

"Without an end to rocket fire into Israel from Gaza, Israel can't be assured of the security of its people," Rhodes said.

The president believes the "preferred outcome" of all of the leaders involved is an end to the loss of life in the region.

Wrapping up Obama’s trip to Myanmar… The politics of Gaza… Optimism in the fiscal cliff negotiations?... Republicans pile on Romney… Disagreement over Benghazi… Marco Rubio in Iowa… And Autopsy 2012: White voters in the South vs. the Midwest.

*** My, my, Myanmar: Overseas, President Obama is now in Cambodia, the third and final leg of his Asia trip. But the centerpiece of his travel took place earlier today in Myanmar, the country formally known as Burma. Obama became the first U.S. president to visit that nation, and he was greeted by thousands, including uniformed school aged children who were waving U.S. and Myanmar flags in near unison. The president then proceeded to the home of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and the drive there displayed a very poor country getting its first taste of capitalism. Afterward, Obama formally addressed the people of Myanmar in a speech at Yangon University, where he justified his trip to this still not-yet-free country. “When I took office as president, I sent a message to those governments who are ruled by fear. In my inaugural address, I said, ‘We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.’” The visit to Myanmar wasn’t just ceremonial -- Obama brought an aid package worth $170 million. Meanwhile, the Myanmar government announced it was inviting the Red Cross back to resume prisoner visits, and it pledged to have a process that could lead to the release of even more political prisoners by the end of this year.

Jason Reed / Reuters

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tour the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon Nov.19, 2012. Obama became the first serving U.S. president to visit Myanmar on Monday.

*** The politics of Gaza: In other world news, a full-blown ground war in Gaza is not good for anyone, obviously. Politically, it could become just one giant hot potato for the president. Here is where things stand right now: The primary players are Egypt (which negotiates with Hamas), Turkey (on speaking terms with both sides) and the United States. There is a sense in the White House that they need to get some sort of cease fire negotiated ASAP. Can Egypt convince Hamas it is in their best interests to stop the missile strikes? How much pressure will this new Egyptian government apply to Hamas? If Egypt can get something stopped, then can U.S. talk Israel into accepting? This is a real test of the fragile relationships this new Egyptian government inherited.

*** Optimism in the fiscal cliff negotiations? “Capitol Hill leaders emerged from their meeting Friday with President Barack Obama sounding optimistic about their ability to reach consensus on vexing tax and spending issues and avoid the impending ‘fiscal cliff,’” NBC Mike O’Brien wrote. Said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: "I feel very good about what we were able to talk about in there. We have the cornerstones of being able to work something out." Added House Speaker John Boehner: "I believe that the framework that I've outlined is consistent with the president's call for a fair and balanced approach." And here was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: "We're prepared to put revenue on the table provided we fix the real problem, even though most of my members -- I think, without exception -- believe we're in the dilemma we're in not because we tax too little, but because we spend too much." As the New York Times noted, “The … congressional leaders emerged from the West Wing round table together and in good spirits — a far cry from the 2011 negotiations, when they generally left separately and, once back at the Capitol, circulated competing versions of the private discussions.”

*** Piling on Romney: On the Sunday shows, Republicans continued to pile on Mitt Romney for his statement to donors last week that Obama won due in part to “gifts” he gave to African-American, Latino, and younger voters. “We're in a big hole. We're not getting out of it by comments like that. When you're in a hole, stop digging. He keeps digging,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said on “Meet the Press.” Here was Newt Gingrich on ABC: “I just think it's nuts... I mean, the job of a political leader in part is to understand the people. If we can't offer a better future that is believable to more people, we're not going to win.” And conservative writer George Will added on ABC, “It's been well said that you have a political problem when the voters don't like you, but you've got a real problem when the voters think you don't like them... quit despising the American people.” Ouch.

*** Disagreement over Benghazi: Another big topic on the Sunday show was the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, especially after former CIA Director David Petraeus’ testimony on Capitol Hill on Friday. “Disagreement ranged across the Sunday talk shows on the question of whether the administration had intervened to excise references to al-Qaeda involvement in the CIA’s assessment of the Benghazi attack when it offered its first lengthy public explanation of the incident,” the Washington Post says. “The White House and intelligence officials have said the terrorist assessment offered by Petraeus was both classified and still tenuous and that to reveal it at the time of [Susan] Rice’s interviews would have compromised their secret sources of information.”

*** Rubio in Iowa: Politico: “Thirty-eight months before the next presidential vote is cast, Marco Rubio on Saturday night became the first of the potential 2016 contestants to swoop in to this first caucus state and test the GOP’s new rallying cry to broaden its appeal. Seven hundred people turned out to see the Florida senator at the annual birthday fundraiser bash for GOP Gov. Terry Branstad. Rubio had the spotlight all to himself — he said he was merely here to help the governor mark his 66th birthday, but no one believed it for a minute.” More: “In his speech at Branstad’s party, Rubio said he understood Republicans’ frustrations over their electoral loss, but insisted that the country needed to return to its traditional principles to remain a power and global role model.”

*** Autopsy 2012: White voters in the South vs. Midwest: In a Sunday New York Times op-ed, University of North Carolina-Charlotte history professor Karen Cox argued that political opposition to Obama in the 2012 election wasn’t necessarily rooted in the South; instead, it was based more on a rural-vs.-urban divide across the country. “In other words, before our liberal allies in blue states point their fingers and scoff, they might want to take a look in their own rural backyards for evidence that their states actually have something in common with the supposedly backward ones in the South,” Cox writes. But that analysis ignores this evidence from the 2012 exit polls: Obama’s support among white voters in the South was VASTLY different than white voters in the Midwest. In fact, in all former states of the Confederacy -- including Florida and Virginia, which Obama won -- the president’s share of the white vote was less than the national average. That includes Mississippi and Alabama, where Obama got, respectively, just 10% and 15% of the white vote. But in all contested battlegrounds in the Midwest, Obama’s support among white voters was higher than the national average. Note: Not all states had exit polls, including Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Obama’s share of the white vote, per the 2012 exit polls:
Mississippi: 10%
Alabama: 15%
North Carolina: 31%
Florida: 37%
Virginia: 37%
National average: 39%
Ohio: 41%
Michigan: 44%
Minnesota: 48%
Wisconsin: 48%
Iowa: 51%

*** Happy Thanksgiving: A final note: This will be our last morning First Read of the week, although we will update the web site as news warrants. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. And we’ll be back next week.

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Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama speaks during a press conference Nov.14, 2012 in the East Room of the White House.

Updated 2:44 p.m. ET - President Barack Obama claimed a broad mandate for his vision on taxes at his first news conference since being re-elected, demanding that his negotiations with Congress yield a specific plan that results in a higher tax burden for the wealthiest Americans.

Speaking Wednesday at the White House, the president said that his recently-concluded campaign against Republican nominee Mitt Romney sent a "very clear message" as to which tax plan Americans prefer. Citing his decisive victory last Tuesday, Obama vowed to stand firm on asking the wealthy to shoulder a greater share of the tax burden.

"There is a package to be shaped, and I'm confident that parties -- folks of goodwill in both parties can make that happen," Obama said. "But what I'm not going to do is to extend Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent that we can't afford and, according to economists, will have the least positive impact on our economy."

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Republicans on Capitol Hill have said since the election that they are open to increased revenue by way of tax reform linked with entitlement reform. But Obama suggested that the GOP's version of tax reform -- cementing or lowering existing rates, combined with the elimination of certain loopholes -- would not be sufficient.

"It's very difficult to see how you make up that trillion dollars -- if we're serious about deficit reduction -- just by closing loopholes and deductions," the president said. "The math tends not to work."

He later added, in a snipe at Republican thinking on taxes: "What I will not do is to have a process that is vague, that says we're gonna sorta, kinda raise revenue through dynamic scoring or closing loopholes that have not been identified."

The expiring 2001 Bush tax cuts, which Obama extended for two years in 2010, are half of the looming "fiscal cliff," the combination of the end of those tax cuts with a series of automatic spending cuts set to begin in 2013, which economists warn could imperil the recovery. The simultaneous debates on taxes and spending are, generally speaking, a byproduct of congressional gridlock on those issues for the better part of the last two years.

The press conference, Obama's first formal meeting with the Washington press corps since the summer, marked his most direct assertion of a second term agenda since winning re-election. He spoke of the need to address taxes and spending, as well as immigration, and he forcefully defended his ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, from Capitol Hill Republicans who argue Rice erred in responding to the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. 

Rice is thought to be a leading contender to succeed Hillary Clinton as leader of the State Department, though Obama said he had made no determination as to a nominee for that role. But he forcefully rebuffed a small chorus of Senate Republicans, lead by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who have vowed to block Rice from that job should he win the nomination. 

"If Senator McCain and Senator Graham, and others want to go after somebody? They should go after me," a blunt Obama said. "When they go after the U.N. ambassador, apparently because they think she's an easy target, then they've got a problem with me."

But the fiscal cliff is most likely to consume much of the political oxygen in Washington in the coming weeks and months, particularly as the specter of tax hikes loom on Jan. 1. He renewed his demand that Congress send him a bill extending existing tax rates for all but the top income bracket, something which Republicans have refused to do for the better part of this year for fear of losing a bargaining position.

The president claimed a broader mandate on other domestic issues, too. He said that his staff had already begun conversations with lawmakers in pursuit of comprehensive immigration reform, a priority that had eluded his administration -- to the consternation of Latino voters -- during his first term.

"My expectation is that we get a bill introduced and we begin the process in Congress very soon after my inauguration," Obama said.

At the same time, the president suggested some priorities from his first term -- such as legislation to address the impact of climate change -- would take a backseat to other issues at the outset of his second term.

"I don't know what either Democrats or Republicans are prepared to do at this point," he said, noting that regional differences between lawmakers have just as often scuttled a wide-ranging deal on climate legislation as partisan differences. He furthermore said that economic and jobs growth were his foremost priority, and that he wouldn't support a climate deal that inhibited either.