tell you at this point what the folks in the intelligence and law enforcement community are trying to do at this point is connect the dots and figure out what the truth is, the truth on the ground is, and at the same time they're trying to make sure they have all the bases and that is no pun intended obviously. they're trying to make sure they have all of the area covered that they need to be responsible for today, specifically considering the fact that if this does turn out to be a disgruntled worker, they're covered. >> i'll show the audience the other story we're watching out of washington. we're awaiting word from the president right now. we've been begin the two-minute warning he'll address the nation on the 5th anniversary of the collapse of lehman brothers and the state of the u.s. economy. stay tuned for that. j.j., as we continue our thoughts on the situation unfolding at the washington navy yard, if you can tell me, how far does the lockdown in

washington continue? in other words, how big of a state of alert is washington, d.c. on? >> the coast guard set up a temporary restricteded zone. all of the waterways are off limits to both not already there. when you walk around the area around the yard until then driving around the roadways around there and having also driven through this morning, i've seen an enhanced security presence. in some cases there are people on capitol hill. i saw a kument of officers with automatic weapons. there are people out with dogs. there are cars in certain places. there's an enhanced presence around the white house. i don't think that this is an insignificant scenario.

it may go on for hours or for a day, but i don't think it's something that is going to pop back to normal or regress to normal within the next couple of hours. >> j.j. -- >> this could last for a while. >> you have to take a back seat to the president of the united states. president barack obama. >> this is why our event today was delayed. i've been briefed by my team on the situation. we still don't know all the facts, but we do know that several people have been shot, and some have been killed. so we're confronting yet another mass shooting. today it happened on a military installation in our nation's capital. it's a shooting that targeted our military and civilian personnel. these are men and women who were

going to work doing their job protecting all of us. they're patriots, and they know the dangers of serving abroad, but today they faced the unimaginable violence that they wouldn't have expected here at home. so we offer our gratitude to the navy and local law enforcement, federal authorities, and the doctors who have responded with skill and bravery. i've made it clear to my team that i want the investigation to be seamless so that federal and local authorities are working together. as this investigation moves forward, we will do everything in our power to make sure whoever carried out this cowardly act is held responsible. in the meantime, we send our thoughts and prayers to all at the navy yard who have been touched by this tragedy. we thank them for their service. we stand with the families of those who have been harmed. they're going to need our love and support. as we learn more about the

courageous americans who died today, their lives, their fames, their patriotism, we will honor their service to the nation. they helped to make great, and obviously, we're going to be investigating thoroughly what happened as we do so many of these shootings sadly that have happened. we'll do everything we can to try and prevent them. now, in recent weeks much of our attention has been focused on the events in syria. the horrible use of chemical weapons on innocent people, including children. the need for a firm response from the international community and over the weekend would took an important step in that direction towards moving syria's chemical weapons under international control so they can be destroyed. and we're not there yet, but if properly implemented this agreement could end the threat these weapons pose not only to the syrian people but to the

world. i want to be clear, though, that even as we've dealt with the situation in syria, we continue to focus on my number one priority since the day i took office. making sure we recover from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes and rebuilding our economy so it works for everyone who is willing to work hard. so that everybody who is willing to take responsibility for their lives has a chance to get ahead. it was five years ago this week that the financial crisis rocked wall street and sent an economy already into recession into a tailspin. it's hard sometimes to remember everything that happened during those months, but in a matter of a frightening few days and weeks, some of the largest investment banks in the world

failed, stock markets plunged and banks stopped lending to families and maul businesses. our auto industry, the heartbeat of american manufacturing, was flat lining. by the time i took office, the economy was shrinking by an annual rate of more than 8%. our businesses were shedding 800,000 jobs each month. it was a perfect storm that would rob millions of americans of jobs and homes and savings that they had worked a lifetime to build. and it also laid bare the long erosion of the middle class that for more than a decade has had to work harder and harder just to keep up. in fact, most americans who know economic hardship these past several years, they don't think about the collapse of lehman brothers when they think about the recession. instead, they recall the day they got the gut punch of a pink

slip or the day a bank took away their home. the day they got sick but didn't have health insurance, or the day they had to sit their daughter or son and tell him or her they couldn't afford to send their child back to college the next semester. so those are the stories that guided everything we've done. it's what in those earliest days of the crisis caused us to act so quickly through the recovery act, to arrest the downward spiral and put a floor under the fall. we put people to work repairing roads and bridges, to keep teachers in our classrooms, our first responders on the streets. we helped responsible homeowners modify their mortgages so that more of them could keep their homes. we helped jumpstart the flow of credit to help more small businesses keep their doors open. we saved the american auto industry.

as we worked to stabilize the economy and get it growing and creating jobs again, we also started pushing back against the trends that had been battering the middle class for decades. so we took on a broken health care system, we invested in new american technologies to enour addiction to foreign oil. we put in place tough, new rules on big banks. rules that we need to finalize before the end of the year, by the way, to make sure the job is done. we put in new protections that crack down on the worst practices of mortgage lenders and credit card companies. we also changed a tax code that was too skewed in favor of the pe wealthiest americans and locked in tax cuts for 98% of americans. we asked those at the top to pay a little bit more. so if you add it all up, over the last three and a half years our businesses have added 7.5 million new jobs. that unemployment rate has come

down and our housing market is healing and our financial system is safer. we sell more goods made in america to the rest of the world than ever before. we generate more renewable energy than ever before. we produce more natural gas than anybody. health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in 50 years. just two weeks from now millions of americans who have been locked out of buying health insurance just because they had a pre-existing condition, just because they've been sick or couldn't afford it, they finally have a chance to buy quality, affordable health care on the private marketplace. what all this means is we've cleared away the rubble from the financial crisis and begun to lay a newfound -- new foundation for economic growth. in our personal lives, i think a lot of us understand that people have tightened their belts, shed debt, refocused on the things that really matter. all of this happened because

ultimately of the resilience and grit of the american people, and we should be proud of that. on this five-year anniversary we should take note of how far we've come from where we were five years ago. but, that's not the end of the story. as any middle class family will tell you or anybody striving to get in the middle class, we're not yet where we need to be, and that's what we have to focus on. all the remaining work that needs to be done to strengthen this economy. we need to grow faster. we need more good-paying jobs. we need nmore broad-based prosperity and more ladders of opportunity for people who are currently poor but want to get into the middle class. even though our businesses are creating new jobs and at broken record profits, the top 1% of

americans took home 20% of the nation's income last year, while the average worker isn't seeing a raise at all. in fact, that understates the problem. most of the gains have gone to the top one-tenth of 1%. so in many ways the trends that have taken hold over the past few decades of a winner-take-all economy where a few do better and better while everybody else treads water or losing ground, those trends have been made worse by the recession. that's what we should be focused on. that's what i'm focused on. that's what i know the americans stands beside me as well as all of you out there are focused on. as congress begins another budget debate, that's what congress should be focused on. how do we grow the economy faster and create better jobs, how do we increase wages and

incomes? how do we increase opportunity for those locked out of opportunity? how do we create better retirement security? that's what we should be focused on, because the stakes for our middle class and everybody fighting to get into the middle class could not be higher. in today's hypercompetitive world, they have to make the investments necessary to attract good jobs that pay good wages and offer high standards of living. although ultimately our success will depend on all the innovation and hard work of our private sector, all that grit and resilience of the american people, government is going to have a critical role in making sure we have an education system that prepares our children and our workers for a global economy. the budget congress passes will determine whether we can hire more workers to upgrade our transportation and communications networks or fund the kinds of research and

development that have always kept america on the cutting edge. what happens here in washington makes a difference. what happens up on capitol hill is going to help determine not only the pace of our growth but also the quality of jobs, the quality of opportunities for this generation and future generations. the problem is at the moment republicans in congress don't seem to be focused on how to grow the economy and build the middle class. i say "at the moment" because i'm still hoping that a light bulb goes off here. so far their budget ideas revolve primarily around even deeper cuts to education, even deeper cuts that would gut

america's scientific research and development, even deeper cuts to america's infrastructure investment, our roads and bridges and schools and energy gr grid. these arnt aren't the policies to grow the economy faster. they're not the policies to help grow the middle class. in fact, they do the opposite. up until now republicans have argued that these cuts are necessary in the name of fiscal responsibility. our deficits are now falling at the fastest rate since the end of world war ii. i want to repeat that. our deficits are going down faster than any time since before i was born. by the end of this year -- [ applause ] by the end of this year, we will

have cut our deficits by more than half since i took office. that doesn't mean that we don't still have some long-term fiscal challenges primarily because the population is getting older, and they're using more health care services. so we still have changes to make, and there's not a government agency or program out there that still can't be streamlined, become more customer-friendly, more efficient. so i do believe we should cut out programs that we don't need. we need to fix ones that aren't working the way they're supposed to or have outlived their initial mission. we've got to make government faster and more efficient, but that's not what is being proposed by the republican budgets. instead of making necessary changes with a scalpel, so far

at least the republicans have chosen to leave in place the so-called sequester cuts that have cost jobs, harmed growth, are hurting our military readiness. top independent economists say this has been a big drag on a recovery this year. our economy is not growing as fast as it should, and we're not creating as many jobs as we should because the sequester's in place. that's not my opinion. that's the opinion of independent economists. the sequester makes it harder to do what's required to boost wages for american workers. the economy is still slack, so if republicans want the economy to grow faster, create more jobs faster, they should want to get rid of it. it's irresponsible to keep it in place. if congress is serious about

wanting to grow the economy faster and creating jobs faster, the first order of business must be to pass a sensible budget that replaces the sequester with a balanced plan that is both fiscally sound and funds the investments like education and basic research and infrastructure that we need to grow. this is not asking too much. congress' most fundamental job is passing a budget. congress needs to get it done without triggering another crisis. without shutting down our government or worse threatening not to pay this country's bills. after all the progress that we've made over the last four and a half years, the idea of reversing that progress because of an unwillingness to compromise or because of some idea logical agenda is the

height of irresponsibility. it's not what the american people need right now. these folks standing behind me are people who are small business owners, people who almost lost their home, young people trying to get a college education, and all of them went through some real tough times during the recession and in part because of the steps we took and primarily because of their courage and determination and hard work, they're in a better place now. the last thing they're looking for is for us to go back to the same kind of crisis situations that we've had in the past. the single most important thing we can do to prevent that is for congress to pass a budget without drama that puts us on a sound path for growth, jobs, better wages, better incomes.

look, it's never been easy to get 535 people here in washington to agree on anything. you know, budget battles and debates, those are as old as the republic. it's even harder when you have divided government. right now you've got republicans controlling the house of representatives and democrats controlling the senate and a democrat in the white house. so this is always going to be tough. having said that, i cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos if it can't get 100% of what it wants. that's never happened before. that's what's happening right now. you have some republicans in the house of representatives who are promising to shut down the government at the end of this month if they can't shut down the affordable care act.

if that scheme doesn't work, some have suggested they won't pay the very bills that congress has already rung up, which would cause america to default on its debt for the first time in its history. and we'll create massive economic turmoil, interest rates on ordinary people would shoot up. those kinds of actions are the kinds of actions that we don't need. the last time this same crew threatened this course of action back in 2011, even the mere suggestion of default slowed our economic growth. everybody here remembers that. it wasn't that long ago. now, keep in mind initially the whole argument was we're going to do this because we want to reduce our debt. that doesn't seem to be the focus now. now the focus is on bahaobamaca.

let's put this in perspective. the affordable care act has been the law for three and a half years now. it passed both houses of congress, the supreme court ruled it constitutional, and it was an issue in last year's election and the candidate who called for repeal lost. [ applause ] the republicans in the house have tried to repeal or sabotage it about 40 times. they've failed every time. meanwhile, the law has already helped millions of americans. young people who are able to stay on their parents' plan up until the age of 26. seniors who are getting additional discounts on their prescription drugs. ordinary families and small businesses that are getting rebates from insurance companies because now insurance companies have to actually spend money on people's care instead of on administrative costs and ceo

bonuses. a lot of the horror stories that were predicted about how this was going to shoot rates way up and there were going to be death panels and all that stuff, none of that stuff's happened. in two weeks the affordable care act will help millions of more people. there's no serious evidence that the law, which has helped to keep down the rise in health care costs to their lowest level in 50 years, is holding back economic growth. so repealing the affordable care act, making sure that 30 million people don't get health insurance and people with a pre-existing condition continue to be locked out of the health insurance market, that's not an agenda for economic growth. you're not going to meet an economist who says that that's the number one priority in terms

of boosting growth and jobs in this country. at least not a serious economist. i understand i will never convince some republicans about the merits of obamacare. i understand that. and i'm more than willing to work with them where they have specific suggestions that they can show will make our health care system work better. remember, initially this was like repeal and replace, and the replace thing has kind of gone off to the wayside. now it's just repeal. the larger point is after all that we've been through these past five years, after all the work americans like those standing behind me have done to come back from the depths of a crisis, are some of these folks really so beholden to one extreme wing of their party they're willing to tank the entire economy? just because they can't get their way on this issue?

are they really willing to hurt people just to score political points? i hope not. in case there's any confusion, i will not negotiate over whether or not america keeps its word and meets it's obligations. i will not negotiate over the full faith and credit of the united states. this country has worked too hard for too long to dig out of a crisis just to see their elected representatives here in washington purposely cause another crisis. let's stop the threats. let's stop the political posturing and keep our government open. let's pay our bills on time and let's pass a budget and work together to do what the american people sent us here to do. create jobs, grow our economy, expand opportunity. that's what we need to do. [ applause ]

as far as the budget goes, it's time for responsible republicans who share these goals, and there are a number of folks out there who, i think, are decent folks. i've got some disagreements with them on some issues, but i think genuinely want to see the economy grow and what's best for the american people. it's time for these republicans to step up. originally they said they wanted deficit reduction. our deficits are falling fast. the only way to make further long-term progress on deficit reduction that doesn't slow growth is with a balanced plan that includes closing tax loopholes that benefit corporations and the wealthiest americans at the expense of the middle class. that's the only way to do it.

they said that they wanted entitlement reform. their leaders haven't put forward serious ideas that wouldn't devastate medicare or social security. i've put forward ideas for sensible reforms to medicare and social security, and i haven't gotten a lot of feedback yet. they said that they wanted tax reform. remember? this was just a few months ago they said this is one of our top priorities, tax reform. six weeks ago i put forward a plan that serious people in both parties should lower the corporate tax rate for businesses and manufacturers, simplifies it for small business owners as long as we use some of the money we save to invest in the infrastructure to create more good jobs and good wages for middle class folks who work at these businesses. my position is that folks in this town want a grand bargain,

how about a grand bargain for middle class jobs? i put forward ideas for tax reform. i haven't heard back from them yet. now, congress has a couple of weeks to get this done. if they're focused on what the american people care about, faster growth, more jobs, better future for our kids, then i'm confident it will happen. once we're done with the budget, let's focus on the other things that we know can make a difference for middle class families. lowering the cost of college, finishing the job of immigration reform, taking up the work of tax reform to make the system fair and promoting more investment in the united states. if we follow the strategy i'm laying out for our entire economy and if washington will just act with the same urgency and common purpose that we felt five years ago, our economy will

be stronger a year from now, five years from now, a decade from now. that's my priority. all these folks standing behind me and everybody out there who is listening, that's my priority. i've run my last election. my only interest at this point is making sure that the economy is moving the way it needs to so we've got the kind of broad-based growth that has always been the hallmark of this country. as long as i've got the privilege of serving as your president, i will spend every moment of every day i have left fighting to restore security and opportunity for the middle class and to give everyone who works hard a chance to get ahead. thank you, everybody. god bless you, and god bless america. >> it is now 12:58 eastern time. the president addressing the nation for approximately 20 minutes on the issue of the economy five years after the economic meltdown that led so

many to lose their homes. we're going to address the multiple stories out of the nation's capital in a moment. the shooting at washington, d.c., the serious syria situation all talked about by the president. we're go to reset and come back at the top of the hour.

the. >> welcome back to al jazeera i'm del walters coming to you live from new york city. it is now 1:00 eastern time. we have been following several developing news stories that