gains tomorrow. my final trade, s.a.p. this deal today that we saw, tells me that they are on the right track. >> tim? >> giant mobile, i think this is a move where you see mobile start to give margin back in china. a great div play as well. >> my migt -- mission is simple, to make you money. there's always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. hey, i'm cramer. welcome to "mad money." welcome to cramerica. my job, not just to entertain but to educate and teach you. so call me at 1-800-743-cnbc or tweet me @jimcramer. this consumer, this consumer is driving me crazy! who the heck

can figure out what she's up to. nasdaq gained, but try to figure it out. what threw the market for a loop for most of the day into a late session rally? the fact that auto giant ford motor said that the consumer's stalling. the competitive environment is increasing as growth has slowed. so the bottom line is that we've seen a tougher pricing environment this quarter. and we will face one going forward, end quote, ouch. bam! there goes ford stocks. close down over 8%. i have to admit i was a little mystified about the scale of that decline. about a month ago we went to see fields out in silicon valley, and i wouldn't have called him

bullish near term especially when he called out the weakness in used cars. >> in the marketplace, we're going to have a strong year. we've said that, but we're starting to see some things in the marketplace that we hadn't anticipated last year or even in the first quarter. >> what matters, though, is that autos are a huge part of the economy. gigantic. they provide jobs and the service industry in financing them. you lose the auto industry, you lose a major prop to the economy. it means the consumer's getting spent. that's bad news for stocks. but is there really a consumer-led slow down coming? they were talking about a punk shopper, ceo of dow chemical said the u.s. consumer is in excellent shape. >> it's consumer-driven demand

in the u.s., in china and actually even in europe. it's a mixed global economy, but our sectors are very indicative of where consumers are, and i would tell you right now this result that you just saw which is 11 quarters in a row of volume growth for dow, we produced 2 billion more pounds for the first half. that's showing a strong consumer economy. >> in fact, he said consumer spending is the major reason for the upsizes companies reported. so which is it? it's hard to resolve. we heard from the incredibly well-run mastercard this morning. and you know this company has an eagle eye vision of the economy. sure enough, credit card processing reached a robust 8% in the u.s., certainly a sign that kochb sumer spending is

going at pace. then there's retail. we know that store traffic remains weak. and the last thing we heard from the sores was that it was actually pretty profoundly depressing. mall traffic is down. we can't figure out if it's a slow down or something else at work, something like, perhaps, amaz amazon, which had a 31% increase in sales to $34 billion in the second quarter. those sales are coming out of the hides of other more traditional brick and mortar retailers. it might be just a zero sum game. plus the consumer is incredibly bargain conscious. maybe it depends on the mall. tan jeer outlets, they own outlet centers. so maybe the consumer's being

more frugal. that would explain the endless rallies in dollar tree and dollar general. they keep putting up fab liis number after fabulous number. we saw in line numbers from super growers like nike and under armour. last night we heard from adidas. and that european company raised its growth forecast from mid teens to high teens. so maybe adidas is waking up and starting to take share back from nike and ua. or perhaps they're spending differently. who knows? take a look at the numbers from universal theme parks, owned by comcast, parent of this network. we know the consumers are more prone to spend money on themselves on makeup to take pictures of themselves and post on facebook.

and ulta salon is up 40% this year. orconsumer's spending more on her home than car. the declining used car prices that we heard about, we just got results from massco. and spending is of accelerating here, for those who want to fix up their homes. ppg confirmed the same thing last might on our show. we know that tjx's home goods are the standout. maybe the consumer wants to do it herself. how about supermarkets. we got a disappointing report from the whole foods. whole foods saw its same stores drop 2%. you don't get that when the consumer's robust. but then we heard the ceo talking about slowing the

expansion of new stores to avoid can balancization. maybe people are shopping somewhere else. take restaurants. steeple put out a report on the restaurant i handustry, includi an outright sale on a cramer fave, panera. but then they said business was strong. it continued higher again today to a 52-week high. the consumer's eating a ton in pizza from dominoes. but sally smith, the ceo of buffalo wild wings posted her weakest quarter. pizza's strong? wings weak? that's way too hard to figure

out, especially since they both go fabulously with beer! right now it's too hard to tell. the inconsistency, i'm finding it maddening. and that's why you can have an incredibly inconsistent stock market right now. this market won't be able to sustain these heights. by if the consumer's still spending, just at different places the average could still roar higher. maybe that's why we're just marking time this week, bouncing back and fort ah and stuck in a rut. it seems like there's nothing in between. let's go to les in virginia. >> caller: hey, jim, thanks for taking my call. >> of course. >> caller: your staff does an excellent job. they're very efficient. >> my staff makes me look good every single day, and they look good themselves. >> caller: i want to talk to you about visa. that's the only credit card that can be used in costco.

>> right. >> in addition to that you have it in your charitable trust, is that correct? >> they reported a dynamite number, what's going on? i like visa. master wecard did well too. let's go to joe in kentucky. >> caller: i bought avon a year ago at 650. it declined steadily to 250 by year end. then i bought more, a lot more. considering the tremendous loss during the ceo's tenure, is the ceo a problem at avon? >> no, she got dealt a bad hand. i think she's doing a terrific job with a very bad group of cards. if you want to do some trimming, i understand, i think it's going

to be tough. how about rob in kentucky? rob? >> caller: hey, jimmy c, a kentucky derby city boo-yah to you. >> that city's rockin' one day a year. >> caller: you're right. a self-directed ira and will be taking mandatory draws within 21 months. i'm interested in c-- >> the dividend's still big, but that was a bit of a surprise. let's go to joyce in texas. >> caller: yes, i'm calling about -- thank you very much for taking my call. >> of course. >> caller: i'm calling about altria group.

>> don't worry about it, that's a false presumption, but it was still a good quarter. i think you're fine. when interest rates stay low, altria is a winner. stick with me, i'll help you sort through all the different stats. the invasion of online shopping has made retail a minefield. so how is one brick mortar stock up more than 20% this year? i'll reveal the secret. plus facebook was up huge then sold off most of the day. then i'll take you inside the secret lab for many of the innovative scents and flavors used across the marketplace, including "mad money." so stay with cramer! don't miss a second of "mad money." follow @jimcramer on twitter. have a question?

tweet cramer, #madtweets. send jim an e-mail to madmoney.cnbc.com. or give us a call at 1-800-743-cnbc. miss something in head to madmoney.cnbc.com.

as a supervisor at pg&e, it's my job to protect public safety, keeping the power lines clear, while also protecting the environment. the natural world is a beautiful thing, the work that we do helps us protect it. public education is definitely a big part of our job, to teach our customers about the best type of trees to plant around the power lines. we want to keep the power on for our customers. we want to keep our community safe. this is our community, this is where we live. we need to make sure that we have a beautiful place

for our children to live. together, we're building a better california. i keep telling you, there's a new paradigm in retail. it's not just that online has devastated traditional retailers. it's bargains. after the great recess, people have become a lot cheaper, more frugal. and we're willing to go out of our way to get good deals. that's a part of the reason why tangeer has been such a terrific performer for us. with the stock up more than 25% up to date, for bargain hunters, it's like making a pilgrimage to

mecca. now tangier reported it delivered a top bottom of the line beat. they got 96.9% occupancy rate. and they open the up a new outlet center in columbus, ohio a limb more than a months ago. for most of bricks and mortar, we have too many stores. that's why i want to speak with the ceo to hear more about the quarter. mr. tanger, welcome back. i read that on interstate 71 off ramp about a month ago, there was a stand still of traffic because of something that happened. >> we opened a new outlet center north of columbus, ohio and the consumers loved it.

we filled a niche that nobody had filled forever and we put the first outlet center in the columbus market and backed up traffic about six miles. >> they wanted an experience. obviously, it means an experience for them or they wouldn't wait. and second lly they wanted a bargain. >> in tough times they need a bargain, and they want a bargain. >> there's a lot of malls and shopping centers where there's not a lot of wait. >> we have a some of the best name and designer name stores offering 30% to 70% off every day. >> your top ten tenants ten years ago, where are they? >> some of them are out of business. we educate them on the success of the outlets as a distribution

channel and installing their first stores and rolling them out. >> you're leaving out a key thing, which is they're paying a lot more than the store there before. >> the store that was there before was bankrupt and didn't pay much. >> this is called retenanting. and it's very lucrative for you. >> it's very lucrative for us, because we always put the best brand names that are the most popular today and offer to the consumers. fortunately, they are he're ably a little more rent because their sales volume is so high. we have the lowest cost of occupancy in our mall peer group. so the tenants win, and the consumers win. >> one of the things that i thought was kind of volumetive, columbus, ohio is not a tourist

destination. >> we have lots of drive-to resort locations. fortunately, they're basically dependent on foreign visitors, and we haven't been adversely affected by currency exchange. it's the 12th largest in the country. and about half of our 43 are in major urban areas. >> okay. now one of the things that someone was, you know, don wood. >> very good friend of mine. >> and good friend of the show was saying it's not just amazon, but the people want it now. they want it now. and they want it inexpensive and now. they don't necessarily want to have to order it by computer. they want it to be nearby. are these things you find? when it rains, they want the tanger nearby. they don't want to have to drive

miles. >> amazon's great if you want a bottle of wine or book. but if you are wanting fashion items, you want to try it on, you want to be with your friends and have them tell you how great you look and then you want to take it home in your car and know how much money you saved. >> you don't cater to the department store off-price. you like the branded off-price. >> we have a couple of saks off fifth stores, but we prefer to have the designer selling direct to the consumer. we cut out the middleman. and that's been the success for 35 years. >> and that's how we know it's a compelling buy at those discounts. >> may i just say that i always say this stock downgraded, and i say why did they do that? because they're wrong. "mad money's" back after the break. coming up.

what's that smell? >> that smells much better. >> jim gets a taste of what company is doing in the market for fragrances when "mad money" returns.

you've run out of superlatives pretty quickly when you talk about facebook. i could tell you, it's amazing that facebook can report $6.44 billion in sales. more than wall street was estimating, but that number speaks louder than any adjective. what words do you use to describe a $357 billion company, one that can still generate accelerated revenue growth despite its size. a huge gain over last year's at this time. not to mention how it costs them

next to nothing to get users to come to the site. their principal cost being workers to make sure everything works. they don't make the content, you do. i was thinking about how difficult it would be to calculate the greatness. trace the arc here. it almost seemed they didn't know what to do. then along comes the rise of mobile and they didn't have much to offer. user was dropping. back then its biggest clients were companies introducing individuvideo games for heaven's sake. then came mobile.

everything facebook offered would have a better user experience on your phone than on the desk top. he saw the revolution coming. facebook went from not having much mobile exposure to being a terrific place to upload text and photos. it's simply a better way to express themselves than texts or photos. and a way for hadvertisers to engage with users. you already see some of the greatest, most influential people using facebook live. it's truly incredible. i felt small when i listened to the facebook earnings call last night. telling the wife, man, i just feel small. i feel like i'd been constrained by that chatter, about the

snapchat, encroached on facebook's turf, whether people have become tired of facebook. i've fallen prey to those who say facebook is a fad. we know after last night couldn't be further from the truth. meanwhile, facebook recognizes that its platform is the equivalent of food. mark zuckerberg wants to feed the world to ensure everybody can get online and use facebook and messenger. they know they'll spend more and more time eating facebook. people keep thinking facebook is some sort of technology delivery system, but if's not. facebook is your mobile identity. where you show people what you see. and we're all happy to watch the ads while we're using it, because they actually make the meal all the better. just as you can't go without food, if you've got an internet connection i think you probably can't go without facebook. why did the stock initially drop $5 and then get slapped down

closing at $1.66? why did it u-turn? i think it had already run going into the quarter and hit a wall of profit taking. we've seechb bounces before, i suggest you use the weakness to buy the stock. because i can see facebook rolling toward $160 over time, which is where it starts to get classically expensive. often an earnings basis, that's 35 points away. i trust zuckerberg. he's earned it. and while i might not agree with his contention that we're ostil very early on in the company's life. it's going to lead to a substantially higher stock price. andy in california, andy? >> caller: hey, jim, a great big boo-yah, how are you doing? >> i'm with you on that. i'm doing fine, how about you? >> caller: doing great, thank

you. i was wondering about oracle. >> i'd like to hear more about it from the company. they bought this small/medium-sized cloud player. thank you for serving. let's go to head in connecticut. >> caller: how are you doing? >> it's a super day for me, how about you? >> caller: yeah, it's a great day. i want your peelifeelings for t short and long testimony on emc. >> if we want technology, we're going to go for facebook or google. which is now, of course, alphabet. bill in arizona. bill. >> caller: hi, jim. this is wild bill from sunny phoenix, arizona, where it's always another day in paradise. thank you for taking my call. >> i like where you are.

i agree with that. >> caller: i'd like your overall opinion of the self-storage industry and in particular, exr. >> i think you have a winner, wild bill, where it is always fabulous? sunny? great? kind of like jersey. anyway, this is mark zuckerberg's world. we're all just living in it. i expect more freiggreat innova from facebook. still more "mad money" tonight, clupg the sweet smell of success. i got an inside look at the secret lab in the heart of manhattan. i take you inside a place few have ever seen. and you thought utility stocks were boring? think again. and we need all the electricity we can get, i've got a special charm

cha charged up edition of the lightning round. stay with cramer! ♪

bend me shape me, any way you want me as long as you love me, it's alright bend me shape me, any way you want me...

shape the best sleep of your life. sleep number beds with sleepiq technology adjust any way you want it. the bed that moves you. only at a sleep number store. the while we're in the thick of earning season. i don't want to lose sight of companies with powerful, long-term themes. take iff. the stemt technology develops scents and tastes for products. these consumer packaged goods companies are constantly fighting tooth and nail against each other for marketing.

so they'll happily pay for a new taste or smell if it means getting a small edge over the competition. the stock surged from 119 to a new, all-time high of $126. climbing $133 as of today. this little-known company has had a remarkable run from the february lows. so i want to give you a better sense of the company. we went straight to the source, the chairman and ceo. and let me tell you, it was smellin' just fine. and oh, this is just my own bespoke fragrance. no big deal. take a look. >> you run one of the great growth companies of all time. your growth is still strong and companies that have been around, is it because i offer value proposition to your customers?

>> absolutely. were you saying the company is 127 years old. so we are around for quite a while. and the proposition is that basically, if you look at repurchasing of it things you eat, then the taste plays an important role. the same is actually for the smell. so if people want to see something that is really great, they want to have it again. that's where we are coming in. if you look at our cost of goods for customers, it's relatively low part. it's it 2% to 5% of their goods. but the value is enormous. >> how do you know what tastes good and smells good? >> first of all, jim, it's different from country to country. what we do is every single year, roundabout 500,000 consumer interviews to find out what they

like, what do we have to develop them for the next weeks and months. >> in some places, what tastes good is what's disliked in other places. >> absolutely. that's what we see in e grageogc ditches. we find out what they really want. that might be different. as we discussed before, there is an acquired taste and something in their genes that bitter is not good for you and you should be careful with it. and that might be a good mixture between acquired taste and taste which is already in your dna. >> i know there are some businesses already on fire. the fabric business. what smells clean? but i can't figure out other than what my mother told me smells clean, how do you know? >> that's probably a good indicator.

i think we all acquire these kind of senses during the time of our upbringing. and then we go and fall back to that. and if we think we had a good experience during our childhood, then this is something which makes clean for us. that might be different from country to country and from geography to geography. >> how about taste, how about a major consumer products company saying we want something that tastes good. and how much of it is them saying we want the taste of sugar, we want the taste of salt, but we don't want fat, we don't want empty calories? >> we get a lot of briefings from our customers, and they tell us what they really want. this -- then we do the testing again. and hopefully our product is selected. in many cases it is. >> there are people, i'm sure, at your company that are masterful at this. that have done it for a long

time. would they say this is what i think you're going to like soon? because i see tastes change. but i can't predict where they are. >> there are many people. and in the different parts of the businesses you have the perfumers, for example, and you will meet one in a couple of minutes. and they have their own experience. on the other hand, you have the flavorists. they do the same thing. >> flavorist. >> a flavorist. >> i want that job. >> absolutely. you can try it out. if your taste and smell is, senses are good, i think you could too. but you can try it, certainly. so we have people, flavorists who are doing exactly that. and they're experts in savory or dairy or beverages. so it goes very much now to the category. >> one of the things that we've all come to realize, it's a great secular trend is natural and organic. where does iff play in a world where we might think that artificial flavors we can't have

it. artificial taste. what really matters is it's not to be right off the vine, farm to table. >> yeah, we play in both areas, but i have to say, if you look at chemicals, we have chemicals everywhere. we have chemicals in our body. i don't think you can get rid of chemicals. it will be a very short story. we talk about the safety of ingredients. that's where we do a lot of things and research to make sure every single ingredient which goes into one of our products is absolutely safe to use. and it might be a natural ingredients, or it might be synthetic ingredients. >> that's important. we presume natural and organic means good and synthetic means bad. >> which is probably not true. because you can have a natural ingredient, which is not today for your body. just think about mushrooms, which are poison, or think about other natural ingredients which are not good for your body and others which are synthetic and

100% good for your body as well. that's something where we have to do some more work to educate people what is really good for you. but i agree with you, natural, organic is a trend, and we at iff cater to that trend. >> do you tell consumer products company, listen, we can make something taste better than the other guy? >> usually it's a different way. you get a brief. and then basically, all competitors come up with their solutions. them the solution goes to the consumer testing. and what comes best, that's the selective process. >> i see famous people have fragrances. do they come to you and say i want to smell like this and not that? how do you make a famous person

sme smell. >> sometimes they have very clear ideas, and then they sit together with our perfumers. and perfumery is a mixture between science and art. and here the artistic piece comes in. and actually, many of our perfumers click very well with these celebrities, because they're usually i have artistic as well, hthen they come up wit something. they smell it, and then they decide. >> are there things that taste really great that aren't filling in real life? >> i don't know. but you can ask this question to our perfumers. >> we want to do that. the chairman and ceo of iff. thank you. >> thank you, jim. what's better than "mad money"? how about more "mad money"? follow "mad money" on facebook, twitter and instagram to go one on one with cramer. >> what other questions do we have? ah, i always tell people, you've

goat to sta got to start with an index fund. >> get more with guests and go behind the scenes with the most interactive show on television. >> if you can't explain in three bullets why you're buying a certain stock, don't buy! >> follow "mad money" today.

it is time! it's time for the lightning round. and then the lightning round is over! are you ready? we're going to start with christian in wisconsin. >> caller: boo-yah, jim, buy, sell or hold on american water works? >> that's a buy. we love the fact that they were literally the kind of company that these municipalities have to pay in order to get their water systems working. how about terry in new jersey. >> caller: hey, jim, boo-yah, boo-yah, boo-yah. >> a triple boo-yah right back. what's up? >> caller: not much, partner. what do you think of weight-watchers. >> no, not for me, my friend,

don't like that business model. new jersey, margaret. >> caller: hey, mr. cramer, how are you? >> doing well. how about you? >> caller: i'm doing great. i own a stock, gw pharma. >> that was a great speculative one that we involved with, because i do think that they have the pure cannabis that doctors want to prescribe. if you want to hold on, it's pure spec. it's had a monster move. curtis in north carolina, curtis. >> caller: thanks so much for taking my call today. >> my pleasure. >> caller: i'm long on stock on stryker. >> their competitor is much better, i say sell, sell, sell stryker. and buy zimmer. we're going to arthur in

maryland. >> caller: boo-yah from the home of the paterrapins. >> you want to buy rangold if you want to buy gold. go to luke in michigan. >> caller: boo-yah from grand rapids, jim, just wondering about air lease. >> we're going to be in united technologies. and that's conclusion of the lightning round! >> the lightning round is sponsored by td ameritrade. for whenever anything happens in the market. kid's a natural. but thinkorswim already lets you create custom alerts for all the things that are important to you. shhh. alerts on anything at all? not only that, you can act on that opportunity with just one tap right from the alert. wow, i guess we don't need the kid anymore. custom alerts on thinkorswim. only at td ameritrade.

it'slexus performance iny to street-legal form.taking for a limited time get great offers on our complete line of f sport performance vehicles. at the lexus golden opportunity sales event.

during the first half of this year, no sector gave you better performance than utilities. as yields from investors piled into the group. thanks to the ultra-low interest rates in the u.s. and the rest of the developed world, utilities have soared, because they're the kind of steady eddie stocks that represent fabulous bond market alternatives. janet yellen said that the economy has improved to the place where we might get a rate hike, possibly in september. so in the wake of this fed meeting, what do we make of the utility industry? consider american electric power, aep, the largest power network in the country. it has a major portfolio.

pack in january we started buying it for my charitable trust. it's up more than 20% year-to-date. although the stock has stalled even though the s&p's rocketing higher. can the stock get its momentum back? american electric power delivered an 8% increase versus last year. not to mention a five cent beat. even if revenue was a little light. up 3% year-over-year. 8% earnings growth, not shabby, yet the stock barely budged. is the more upside in aep, or should we be concerned that the stock may have run out of steam? let's take a closer look with nick akins. mr. akins, welcome back to mad money. >> great to be with you again, jim. >> you had a big earnings surprise. i'm fine. i don't need one from american

lek rielectric power. how did you beat wall street's numbers? >> it wasn't any surprise to us. we've been investing in infrastructure, transmission. we have the largest transmission system in the country. the earnings profile continues to improve draw matz clichlt and weather. we had more normal weather. in previous quarters, weather was very light. we've had a good outcome as a result. >> can you help us, something we've been pondering is how strong is the consumer. you talk about how norm lietzed residential was better, but where do you think the consumer is? you touch a lot of people's lives. >> absolutely. i think residential and commercial customers increased during the quarter, and obviously, the usage by customers continues to improve. now one issue we have is around

spril load. you look at spril manufacturing, we're seeing a slow down from an oil and gas perspective, and mining, mining is being hit pretty hard. so we're seeing that within our service territory, but clear customers are using the product we deliver and the infrastructure investment around ensuring that they have stability of supply, and that's what's to the benefit of aep shareholders. >> you said this was the quarter where you actually saw the impact of low oil and gas. it hadn't really dinged you before that. what do you think happens? it's just finally gone through the cycle to the point where it didn't come back and people were laying off people? >> yeah, i think clearly within our territory, we're seeing 22,000 less jobs in oil and gas and mining in our service territory from year to year. so that's a substantial amount of job loss. and a lot of that was in our western territory, which is mainly attributable to arkansas,

louisiana, texas, which is oil and gas territory. so you're starting toy see a significant slow down. although electric loads hang in there, it was like a 6% reduction. you're seeing a 18% reduction in the mining side of things. it's substantial. >> i was surprised, coal, hate it or like it. there's a lot of people losing their jobs in that industry. >> absolutely. they're in a depression in kentucky and west virginia. so we've got to be able to make sure that we're investing in other types of resources. we're doing that. we're kochb verting some coal stations to natural gas. hopefully that will help out. but obviously, economic development is going to be key for those areas. >> i say the natural gas pick up. we've seen some of these utilities doing joint deals, buying some pipelines.

is it intriguing for you for some of these pipeline companies doing so poorly, snap something up for a bargain? >> one issue we look at is the threshold around investments. we have the largest transmission system in the country, when you look at the ability to deploy capital, you want to do that wietzly, and our investments really focus on the electric transmission investments and also other types of investments that we're making, such as renewables. we continue to move into that space, because we're really focussed on what the customer experience is going to be in the future. we have a runway ahead of us in terms of transmission investment that's really, really good for us. >> last question, goldman sachs put out an interesting story yesterday. you've got a division you might sell, but is that how i should look at american electric power is ma if you broke it up, it's

worth a lot more than what it's selling pour? -- for? >> we serve 11 states. d distribution we continue to invest in. as you see things around renewable storage, those are benefits we see within our service territory as well. so a lot of diversity there, a lot of opportunity to invest. >> well, terrific. look, i like the upside, you know, my charitiable trust, it's been a big win for us. always good to see, you sir. >> thank you, jim. >> you should always own one of these companies. this is the utility. that's nick akins. ceo of american electric power.

cnbc has continuing coverage of the democratic national convention tonight. don't miss my good friends,

carl, kelly and michelle with john harwood reporting from the floor. they're doing tremendous work on the floor with the economic impact of this election. we're going to have to go through apple, facebook, then there's alphabet, formerly known as google. i was too skeptical. every single one of these was better than expected. and probably the most fabulous one is facebook. but the one that i think that a lot of people thought would be blah to not good was apple. you know what? all of them are driving the market higher. and i've got to tell you. i think all of them can still go higher still. amazon being maybe the one that's gotten too far. i like to say, there's always a bull market somewhere, i promise to find it for you right here on mad money. i am jim cramer and i will see you tomorrow!

♪ >> narrator: in this episode of "american greed"... ray nagin rises to power as mayor of new orleans on big promises of reform. >> the winds of change are blowing, and they are fanning the flames of a renaissance in our great city. >> when he first came into office, he was a rock star. i mean, this is a guy who had crossover support -- black, white, rich, poor. i mean, he was the guy that came into office that was supposed to change new orleans, fix new orleans, clean up new orleans. >> narrator: until one of the most catastrophic storms in history changes everything. >> katrina strikes a heavy blow to the louisiana coast as a category-4 storm. >> everybody was devastated. we had no electricity. we had no running water. we had no food.