tv John King USA CNN July 8, 2011 4:00pm-5:00pm PDT
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entourage isoing to be. we are expecting the british ambassador to be here, the consul general in los angeles, who is -- his house is where the royal couple will be staying and we are expecting them to depart this plane any moment now for what's expected to be a very, very busy weekend in southern california. candy? >> casey wian, max foster on the story for us. thanks so much. i'm candy crowley in "the situation room." for our international viewers, world report is next. in north america, "john king, usa" starts right now. thanks, can dirk good evening, everyone. tonight, bittersweet history for america's space shuttle program. >> 2, 1, 0, and liftoff. the final liftoff of "atlantis" on the shoulders of the space shuttle, america will continue the dream. >> "atlantis" roars majestically in know space, the 135th had mission is the last for the space shuttle program. author tom wolfe joins us to talk about the american space
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program at a crossroads. we lost a chance to explore the heavens and who know what is we will find if we explore the heavens. up first tonight, a depressing jobs report from the government stuns economists, not to mention the obama re-election campaign team. just 18,000 new jobs created last month's and may's number was revised downward to just 25,000. the unemployment rate went up as a result from 9.1% to 9.2% and truth be told, most economists agree that real rate, closer to 16% because so many americans have stopped looking for work or have no choice but to work part time. another soccer number there are now 14.1 million americans officially considered unemployed. nearly half of them have been looking for work for six months or longer. in a moment, the politics of the jobs, how this anemic report complicates deficit reduction talks and the president's report
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on how to keep his job for four more years. how the economy is in a fragile state, what where it is hurting the most and how the government can help had. let's break down the numbers, we will go through and show you the rate over time through the obama administration. remember, they passed the stimulus plan early on, thought the rate was going to drop. above 10%, started to come down a little, then bang, back up, heading up 9.2% today. bad news for the administration. here is the big question, where are the jobs? you see jobs started to go up in a better rate, but the last two months, very bleak. consider this, even if the economy added 125,000 jobs a month, 125,000 jobs a month, between now and the election next year, that would keep the unemployment rate flat lined, right around 9.2%. the president, if he wants the rate to go down needs dramatic improvement in the jobs climate and need it is quickly. one more here, pretty sobering if you look at it the government 14.1le million unemployed, half of them long term. add in those underemployed, people who can only find a part-time job, about 22.7 million people hurt and hurt
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badly by this economy. let's dig deeper, chief white house correspondent jessica yellin and in new york where traders on wall street literally gasped when the report was released. jess, to you first, hard enough for the president, facing re-election, the unemployment rate is stubborn in the middle of this, trying to get a deficit reduction deal. you have reaction to the jobs report, release this, this is from a liberal think tank in town this is a remarkable across-the-board back slichld the president and congressional leaders need to stop talking about deficit reduction and start talking about job creation, that from the economic policy institute, a liberal think tank in town. the president is in quite a box. >> they know t they have tried some pretty remarkable measures to kick start the economies the way they know how and they are sort of out of tools. what they are frustrated about, they think that there are a few more tools left and that congress is blocking them from using them at this point and they are trying to prod congress into action on that there's also a measure of optimism that if there is a debt deal that could
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somehow encourage corporations to invest more in the economy and that in itself could jump start the economy, but it's very -- at an arm's reach from the white house. there's not that much the president himself can do it's frustrating. >> so alison, describe this gasp on the floor of wall street and why. what so stunned? why were they so disappointed to see this number and what did they make of it? >> they did gasp and you heard it went report came out at 8:30 this morning, oh, my gosh, i can't believe only 18,000 job added. it is because the predictions were that up to 125,000 jobs would have been added. this comes after that may report that you said that was downgraded to 25,000. and it's very frustrating for a lot of these investors, for a lot of traders, for americans to see that we had gained that momentum from january through april, even adding 100, 200,000 jobs a month in some of those moments and then to see the number of jobs literally fall off a cliff.
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now, we all thought that may may have been a blip. now when we see june's numbers, it becomes more of a reality. john? >> we are heading closer and closer, not only to the sensitive deficit negotiations, but to the political campaign. let's listen to a bit of what the president said this morning. he very quickly scheduled an event for the rose garden. the white house sees the numbers the night before, they didn't have are to wait to what hear what was coming. here is what he said today. >> today's job report confirm what is most americans already know, we still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to give people the security and opportunity they deserve. >> the people watching, jess, those unemployed or underemployed, they want to know how the president is going to help them get a job. inside the white house they tried to deal with that, problems getting things through the congress now, what about the president's own job in the sense if we go back a couple months, allison noted, creating more jobs, the president was starting to get more amount mystic, saying we turned a corner, things were getting better, we are on the right path. he can't say that anymore.
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>> they can't, at this point, run on the economy, they have to run on we have started making changes. it hasn't exactly come to pass quite yet but don't stop us now. as you have heard reported, one of his top aides said that people like the president, they will be voting on whether they like him and whether their own personal circumstance feels good. look, republicans are having a field day and going to argue the president's policies made things worse, got us where we are and that this white house is not getting it and, in fact, these jobs numbers could make debt talks worse, we don't know. >> could make them worse. allison, on wall street what is the sense? some liberal economists will say you heard from a think tank at the top of the show. don't do deficit reduction, don't cut spending, the worst thing doug in the economy, the president himself said he thinks one of the hesitations businesses have to hiring is they want to see if washington can get serioussome that the sense on wall street, if they can negotiate a real deficit reduction deal, even if it cults spending, maybe take some federal money out of the economy it is actually good for job creation? >> yes, they do think that just
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so you know, people i talk to on wall street they really think that a deal will happen in the 11th hour, but the the reality is the uncertainty is still there. it is the lack of confidence and lack own certainty keeping these companies from hiring, so if congress can reach an agreement on the debt ceiling, companies are going to feel a lot better about maybe expanding their businesses, maybe about hiring, but right now, they are thinking, you know what i'm not going to put myself out there i'm not going to start hiring people until i know the economy is on solid footing and washington's got its act together. john? >> allison does knick new york, our chief white house correspondent jessica yellin with me. now perspective from david gergen, advised four u.s. presidents. david, i'm going to go back to the report t is almost impossible to find anything encouraging in this report. if you look at it you see employment down in government, down in education, down in financial services, down in construction, down in manufacturing. if you look deeper in this report, david gergen, you see temporary workers being laid off, wages flat lineded.
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advising this president, what do you do now? >> well, john that is very tough and politically it is very tough. you know, this was an administration that promised a stimulus bill that could hold unemployment below 8%. we have had 29 months, a modern record of unemployment being above 8%. this is rare. we haven't seen this kind of thing since the great depression. it is not just a question of getting the numbers coming back, he has to got to build confidence in his leadership and that people have a sense he can get things done and knows where he is going, psych logical as much as about numbers. franklin roosevelt could win with high unemployment, he had the confidence of the country. obama does not have the confidence on his economic stewardship. what does that mean? it puts more leverage on him, more pressure on him to come one the deal on the deficits.
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give the republicans more r leverage. the democrats think the president has been outnegotiated in the white house, very, very upset about the direction of the negotiations but he has got to come up with a deal. secondly, i think to go back to jessica yell answers point, where is plan b for getting jobs and for getting growth? right now, when the president is asking for things from the congress, they are pretty small stuff, pretty much at the margins, a new patent law, not going to produce jobs any time in the near future it is a good thing to do extending payroll taxes, that just keeps us where we are. where is the big bold plan b? where is -- what else can he bring out of the tool box that will give people a sense that he is on our side and he is going to get some things done? it may not -- it may not bring all the jobs back, but at least he is fighting for us? >> ask you to stand by one second this is the oddest split screen i have seen in quite a bit here, talking about a very sober unemployment report but show our viewers live pictures of the duke and duchess of
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cambridge arriving in california for a visit here to the united states, governor jerry brown greeting them on the tarmac here, obviously here for an official visit, raise money for causes, see a bit of the united states of america. people will wonder what is she wearing? that is the big question you see them gathering there all right. back to our conversation. david, here is one of the problems politically and we will show pictures of the royals i as he they make their way if we have interesting pictures for you, hard parts politically. from a policy point, and sometimes i don't like to dwell on the politics of the this, somebody unemployed saying what about getting me a job? somebody out there underemployed, what about getting me a job? sometimes, to those people especially, this can matter. you have david plouffe, the president's adviser saying people don't worry about the unemployment rate they make their decision based on how they feel in their gut to a degree that is true, people feel things are getting better, they tend to maybe listen to an inum couple bent president froochl communication's standpoint, those words best left unspoken? >> absolutely.
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reminds me of last month said terrible unemployment numbers were just a bump on the road they can got stouchbd that mitt romney began running ads, as you know. think david plouffe, usually very carefully on what he says wishes he had stated that a different way. >> david, ask to you stand by, take be a quick break here. >> okay. "atlantis" roars into space and the space shuttle era nears its end. tom wolfe, whose "right stuff" reflects on the shuttle program's closing chapter. >> i think it will be remembered as a very game attempt to keep the manned space program alive. plus, how do we get america back to work? is president obama's agenda helping or hurting? that's next. we inspect your air filter, cabin filter. there's bugs, leaves, lint, crud. you'll be breathing that. i do believe it's part of a locust. make sure your alignments good. your brakes are good.
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set to host another round of takes on the debt crisis this sunday evening it isn't just democrats putting pressure on republicans. senator jim demint is pushing his gop colleagues to get behind a cult, cap and balance pledge and include a balanced budget amendment to the constitution in any possible deal that's
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generating some pushback from his fellow republicans. senator demint with us now from south carolina. his new book "the great awakening two years that changed america, washington and me" came out just this week. i want to get to the debt talksment i want to talk about today's very disappointing unemployment report, jobs report, showing very anemic job growth in the american economy. here is one of the things the president says must be done. if you look at the sectors hurting most, construction is one of them and the president says washington can help. let's listen. >> right now, there are over a million construction workers out of work after the the housing boom went bust, just as america needs lot of rebuilding. we connect the two by investing in rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our rail ways and our infrastructure. >> is the president right, even as you negotiate with him big spending cuts, maybe changes to social security and medicare, your push for a balanced banlt mendment, is he right that even as that goes on, maybe we need to find some money to put
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construction workers to work? >> i don't want to be disrespectful to the president, but it's pretty clear he does not know how to get people back to work. he spent more on economic stimulus than any other president. he promised that was shovel-ready infrastructure work t didn't turn out like that the president's policies have made it very difficult and more expensive for businesses to hire people. i think i know how to create some jobs and i don't think the president has any standing at this point to suggest we should spend more government money to make that happen. >> the president acknowledge there had is uncertainty in the business community. i think you agree with him on that even if you disagree with what he has done. part is markets are waiting, businesses are weight to see if washington will get sear crouse about the deficit and the debt. as the president moves forward on that you are saying you should have a balanced budget amendment. you just made it clear right
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here saying taxes should be off the table. your republican colleague john mccain went to the floor of the senate the other day look, my fellow republicans, not going to get it forget about a balanced budget amendment and senator mccain said this. >> i feel a need to provide my colleagues with some straight talk. it is my view the way to break this gridlock is to agree. is to agree to certain tax increase and closing loopholes but only in return for an overall reduction of the corporate tax ray. >> are you open to that? >> well, i've actually introduced a bill like that and so have many republicans, get rid of all the credit, the loopholes, the subsidies and just have a low exflat corporate rate. >> can there be -- can there be a -- for give me for interrupting, can there also be some tax increases in addition to doing that? he describes a bit of a tradeoff there. >> well, john, if raising taxes would solve our problems and get
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people back to work, i would support it but i know it wouldn't. particularly what the president is talking about is likely to cost more jobs than it would save and marco rubio was right yesterday when he said we don't need more taxes, we need more taxpayers. and what the president is suggesting and the surveys show or the the economists who have looked at that time could cost us 70,000 jobs, just what he is talking about, with very little, if any, new revenue. so the president is playing politics on the tax increases. >> as you know there are some who would dispute your argument on taxes and go back to the 1990s and make this argument, senator, george h. w. bush raised taxes near the end of his administration, probably lost his job because of it. bill clinton came to office, kept a campaign promise, cut taxes on the middle class but he raised them on wealthy americans and what we got over the next eight years was the biggest economic expansion of our lifetime, 21 million jobs created in that period of time. so there are some who would say you have no evidence that at least modest tax increases won't
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create jobs, wouldn't help. >> there's a lot of evidence that the economy in the '90s was created by innovation and explosion of technology in the '80s that paid off but quo argue about that all day, john but i don't think you are going to find many economists and even the president a few months ago said we can't raise taxes in a down economy. the economy is worse now than it was then. and so, it doesn't make sense for him to come back as part of this negotiation and say, okay we got to raise taxes in order to cut spending. we don't have a revenue problem. we had historic levels of revenue for the last five years. and next year, we are projecting the highest level of tax revenue in history. what we have is a spending problem, spending has gown 60% in the last eight years in our country. we need to begin to roll back spending and devolve functions out of the federal level. the only way that we are going to do that is if we force ourselves to balance the budget. some time, six or eight years out, not talking about next
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year, just talking about working our way towards a balanced budget and avoiding bankruptcy as a nation >> you made a name for yourself, senator, the last couple of years with your involvement in conservative cause, particularly the tea party that is the subject of your book, the great awaging, holding up the cover here, talking about two years that changed america, washington and me. what is your message going forward into 2012, as you know and write about in the book, you made a lot of enemies in your own party, you challenged the orthodox circumstance you challenged the establishment, you challenged the leadership f your deal cuts a deal with the president that doesn't get you a balanced budget amendment, maybe includes tax increases. will you do as you do in 2010 look for targets out there including republican incumbent? >> i had to take on my party but now, i think our party is increasingly united around this fiscal problem and that unites wuss us with a lot of americans over 70% of americans don't think we should raise the debt limit and 70% think we should balance our
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budget. that is our focus and i don't think that is hardly a radical thing to say you 49 states have to balance their budget every year. it means they have to make tough decisions. it's time we make tough decisions in washington. >> and so, are you confident you won't have to do it again again that you wouldn't have to go out there and target republicans saying you haven't kept your word, haven't kept your bond with the tea party, or is it, maybe call it a warning, threat is a strong word is that out there for those who might be involved in these negotiations? >> republicans don't need to worry as much about me as choate voters. and i think voters expect a lot of this new class of republicans that they sent last november. we need to keep our word and our word was that we were going to billion this budget and we were going to get control of the debt. so i think that's responsibility and there won't be another point of leverage like we have right now with this debt ceiling for the next year or so. so now is the time and i think it's not an unreasonable request to let the states decide whether or not we should have a balanced budget. and john, that's an important
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point. we can pass a constitutional amendment in congress, but the states still have to ratify it. and after they do, it's five years before it takes effect. so we have plenty of time to move in an orderly way that doesn't disrupt government services toward a balanced budget. that's my commitment to america and i think more and more congressmen and senators are making that same commitment. >> senator jim demint of south carolina, sir, appreciate your time tonight. >> thanks, john. next, live to mission control in houston for an update on the last flight of the space shuttle program. and an an exclusive interview with us. author tom wolfe tell us yes thinks congress and nasa lost what you might call the right stuff.
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tonight, the space shuttle "atlantis" is on its way towards the international space station one last time. its 12-day mission which started this morning is the final flight of the space shuttle program. let's go back through some of the history. here is your shuttle time light. the program started in 1981, that is how far it goes back. you see all the missions here in the '80s, different color for each of the carriers. here is the 1990s, look at that as well, through the '90s, again into the past decade, plus 2011, you see "atlantis" on the final mission, sts-135. what have we seen in this time? dramatic. look at that, miles traveled, distance traveled, "columbia" and cllg cllg the two shut halls we lost, "discovery," "atlantis" and "endeavour," the millions of miles they have flown over time.
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quite amazing when you look at it how much did this program cost us? if you look at it this wake the space shuttle program and apool low program come out roof lit same, $200 billion, $170 billion, 11 apollo flight, 137 shuttle flights. earlier the gemini and the mercury programs costing less money here. one of the questions people ask, what do we get for this? computer technology, a number of things, electronic banking advances, scheduling software out of the shuttle program. consumer home recreation, a lot of different things perfected on shuttle missions you can find around your home. tracking this last mission for us, mission control in houston, cnn's ed lavandera, how is it going? >> great, john, rather a fascinating place to catch this glimpse of this moment in history so it has been a fascinating day for us. >> what can you see right there as you are tracking mission control? give us a tour. >> reporter: sure. sure. all right. if you look behind me here, just right behind me is where the flight director sits, and that
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is the person that they have teams that will rotate here. this will be manned 24/47 during the course of this mission. and what's fascinating is that there are very few monitoring that actually show them video of the space shuttle. the main monitor gives them the course of where the space shuttle "atlantis" is in orbit. right now, just past the eastern seaboard and out over the atlantic waters right now. so it has been fascinating to see just how quickly that space shuttle, "atlantis," john, has been whipping around the earth, travel agent 17,500 miles per hour and it takes about 90 minutes to do a full orbit around the earth. so they are already hard at work. the cargo bay has been opened up and they are planning to connect with the international space station sunday morning. >> and ed, as you are thering they obviously have a busy 12
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days ahead at mission control, working around the clock. when you talk to folks, any sense of nostalgia that this is over? >> reporter: you know, i think that is starting to settle n it was a fascinating day in the hours up to the launch this morning. everyone in mission control was consumed with the weather situation. it was really a last-minute decision. it was fascinating to see about three or four minutes before the launch, the intensity that was picking up in this room, the flight director, richard jones, pacing back and forth, scratching his head. one points, he said everyone give me a second, i need to think about some things. last minute two minutes before the launch, everything settled down, you could tell that they were confident that this was going to be a go and they kind of enjoyed the moment. afterwards, we got speak with richard jones, he said, look, now it is really starting to sink in. these people have to make sure that that shuttle crew gets home safely, that they complete the mission and then that is wasn't motion of this moment will really sink in. remember, there are a great deal of people who will be loses their jobs here in the coming
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months, some 2100 people contracted to work and support the shuttle program. john? >> ed lavandera live in mission control. ed, thanks. joining us now is the legendary author tom wolfe, among his remarkable works, perhaps the best book ever written about the early space program, "the right stuff." mr. wolfe, thanks for being with us on this historic day. watching a space launch, a shuttle launch in recent years, it's majestic. it is like a piece of boat trip. i know you are not a great fan of the shuttle program itself but when you watch one of these, what goes through your mind? >> the only one i saw was at night and so that was really something. at the time, i remember thinking who on earth would do this? who -- this rocket was 35 stories high and this little thimble up at the top, the capsule and somebody lights the fuse below and a this huge thrust goes up and just who is really -- be that was the
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beginning of my writing "the right stuff" my curiosity as to who does this. "the right stuff" it is a signature work, remarkable in some ways, a romantic account of the beginning of the space program. why are you not such a fan of the shuttle program? do you think it let down the early promise? >> it is not that i'm a fan or not a fan, it's just that, obviously, congress would not allow nasa to do what they should have been doing, to fulfill their destiny, not to be too grand about t nasa had to settle for the shuttle program, which was a sad substitute for something as grand as building a bridge to the stars. the shuttle program was really -- it was sold to congress on the grounds that this would be something for civilians. once they got things straightened out, they would have civilians, every sort of type, riding, getting their space ride.
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unfortunately, the first civilian sent up, christa mcauliffe, a school teacher, died in the terrible disaster, "challenger" disaster, 1986, and never again did they -- were they willing to send up another person. and congress was bored stiff with the space program from the very beginning, except that they had to do it to stay ahead of the russians. looking back at it, not the quite sure why we had to stay ahead of the russians. anyway that, is the moat vachlgs since then, congress has wanted to say, hey, here is all this money, we can do other things with it. we can do inconsequential things with it.
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>> is that the right thing to dore market shut program, in your view wasn't the right way, or should america be reaching for the stars, whether scientific exploration, whether just for the romance of it? >> i think definitely we should. of course, it costs an enormous amount of -- it costs an enormous amount of money, but from a point of view, to do that, to be the first to land on mars says something extraordinary about your civilization. >> if nasa lost its purr portion at what point was that? >> it was, i would say, 10:56 p.m. on july 20, 1969, that was vet mome the very moment that neil armstrong stepped on the moon.
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in congress, from that point on, we did it we beat russians. and let's use the money for something we like. that was the end. the budget started declining immediately after success of "apollo 11." >> how all right shuttle program be sflerd what will its legacy be? >> i'm not trying to be cynical, i think it will be remembered as very game attempt to keep the manned space program alive. they didn't keep up so much interest in it. hard to believe that this flight today is 135th space shuttle flight. and so many of them went by with the public having very little notice or very little realization of it that this was going on. that's lot of flights when you consider the attention that was centered on every one of the -- of the early space shot,
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including all of the apollo missions. >> and now, at least until we see what the next generation of nasa, the next generation of our manned spaceflight program might be, and is an open question, this could be largely a commercial enterprise. you have entrepreneurs like richard branson saying i'm going to take civilians into space, i'm going to do what they said might happen with the shuttle program f richard branson were to call you up, tom wolf and say, "i loft right stuff" and you are the guy i want on one of my first flights into space, what would you say? >> i would say pick somebody in his 20s. so much of the work is learned on the job. this is a feat in itself. by trial and error, you just simply cannot just put want ads in the paper and find people of this caliber. >> sounds like you worried we may be closing a chapter and suffering irreparable harm
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because of it? >> is certainly giving up a great, great mission for man to not be able to go into space the way it was done, the apollo program particularly. i wouldn't say irreparable harm but we lost a chance to ex-plorlt heavens and who know what is we will find if we explore the heavens? >> tom wolf, author of "the right stuff" always great read, particularly on this day as which watch the final shuttle mission take off. mr. wolfe, thanks for your time. >> thank you, john, i have enjoyed it. next, stories developing since the top of the hour. the most famous newlyweds in the world have just arrived in united states and right the now, they are heading for beverly hills. in here, the planned combination of at&t and t-mobile would deliver our next generation mobile broadband experience to 55 million more americans, many in small towns and rural communities,
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welcome back. here is the latest news you need to know now. just moments ago, route newlyweds arrived in california, the first stop, beverly hills. prince william and dutch chest katherine probably had more fun today, they attended the calgary stampede in canada. africa gets a new country tomorrow, the republic of south sound, declared ind pen dense from the north, agreed to let it go crowds in juba started celebrating early. 7,000 troops and 900 uniforms police were sent to keep the
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peace. after a week of doubt and angry demonstrations since austerity measures in grooerks the international monetary fund released the equivalent of almost $5 approximately billion tonight, which will help country defaulting on its debts. mike monies heading to china where he is likely to face criticism for allowing the weekend naval exercise along with japan and australia in the south china sea. welcome back, our top story, depressing jobs report from the government n wake of that report, is president obama's agenda helping or hurting?
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a horrible jobs report from the government today was a kick in the teeth to the obama white house, proof not only its efforts to strengthen the recovery is faltering but unemployment likely to remain high up to next year's election. is there anything the president can do to help and is the focus on deficit and spending cuts something that will help or hurt the jobs market? jennifer began who willment is form two-term governor of michigan and christina romer, just recently the governor's top economist. the president came out after this report, voicing concerns, we need to do more to create jobs, he says one way to create more jobs is to get a deal on deficit reduction. >> we have got to rain in our deficits and get the government to live within its means while still making the investments that help put people to work right now and make us more competitive in the future.
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>> dr. romer there are some who say that would have an adverse effect. >> i'm sure what the president is talk about we absolutely have to pass a plan, he has to get a resolution of the deficit, got to get that debt ceiling raised, but i think you're right that if we were to actually do the spending cuts right now or do the revenue increases right now that would be hard on the economy. so the right thing is to pass the plan but then put it into effect much more gradually and also, there's room in part of -- as a part of that plan to do actually more in the short run to stimulate the economy do that infrastructure spending that the president was talking about, cut payroll taxes again as we did last december. those would be things that would help job creation right now and could be part of that comprehensive package. >> as you know though, governor began whom, when you talked about infrastructure investments, republican once say
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that is another fancy word for stimulus spending, which they say failed and which they salt americans do not want. the president is in a bit of a box, isn't he? he has to do business with the republican party, republican majority in house, won't give him the infrastructure spending, call it what you will? >> i think the republicans are in a box, too, both in a box. yet can they reach an an agreement to get out of the box? they have got to get a deal because people care about job creation and this obsession with simply working on the deficit without recognizing that you have to invest in order to create jobs in this country is crazy. when you ask every day citizens, they care about creating jobs, yes, they care about the deficit, but they care about job creation, too. and i think you can do both and the clearly, draz rome eclearly
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you have to work on the deficit first. >> i'm showing how viewers a chart, this yellow line is a recession, flat line in jobs, hardly any jobs created in this economy, almost neutral the last couple of months, yet if you look at corporate profits since we have come out of the recession, up nearly 50% why is it there are no xbroubs if you are the ceo or the board, you are making big bucks? >> i think this recession has been different than other recessions. but there is a lack of demand. we went through a horrible shock with the financial crisis, a terrible shock for consumer, they have seen the price of their homes collapse. i think all of that has taken a toll on how much consumers are willing to buy, how much firms are willing to invest. so, that's certainly what's still fundamentally holding the economy back. >> governor -- >> i was just going to say, john, just to jump in on thatky say from my perspective, a slightly different take on it is
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that we have lost, as a nation, 42,000 former factories since the beginning of the year 2000. globalization and the shift in manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries has changed the dynamic. we are not in a cycle anymore. we are in a structural change to the nature of our nation's economy. so we have to decide as nation, how do we intervene in order to create jobs here rather than seeing all of these jobs go overseas, which, by the way, helps to increase the profits of the multinational corporation and obviously pads the bottom line of those ceos, into the they -- that's just what they do right, increase their profit margins. but we, as a nation have to realize without, for example, a mefrg policy or a clean energy policy or something that makes a good business case for those businesses to locate here, we are going to continue to see this shift in jobs and we have got to be serious about it. >> dr. romer, i'm holding up a report dated january 9, 2009,
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you were the lead author of this report, on what the administration thought would happen under what you called the recovery are act, the stimulus program. as you know, you are out of government now, but this is in many ways, exhibit a for the republicans, saying, a-ha, mr. president, if you go to the chart, 8.1%. i know it's a tough business predicting the economy and i know a lot are surprised at this but if you could get this back, would you like to say to the copy editors, please take that out? >> you know, of course, i would. but i think the most important thing, you know, the thing we said in the report is what the recovery act would do would sav savor, create some 3.5 million jobs and every single report that's come out whether it's the congressional budget office, private forecasters like goldman sachs to the council of economic advisers says it has done that. yes, we got the baseline wrong. we did -- we like all the other
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forecasters to not realize how terrible the recession would be but in terms of what the policies did, i think there's actually a very strong professional consensus that absolutely the recovery act did what the president said it would do. it just wasn't big enough relative to the problem that we ended up actually facing. >> dr. romer, governor began hom, i want to thank you for your time. you are went through a lot of technical glitches i'll call them to get this on live tonight. i appreciate your patience. have a great weekend. moammar gadhafi threatens europe. is he serious? stay with us. this is a big piece of the engine block that was blown off. it's not because they ran it out of oil. they didn't change the oil. as your engine produces different particulants, you want to pick that up and take it down to the oil pan to the oil filter. so the moral of the story is, if you don't want to see your engine in a commercial with me and jim, make sure you get the works done. the works. oil change, tire rotation, $29.95 or less
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eventful and important friday across north africa. thousands marched to show their opposition to a government-backed dialogue process supposed to start this weekend. the demonstrators said it could not begin until government thugs stop attacking people. security forces just today killed at least eight. tens of thousands filled cairo's tahrir square demanding the government speed up the pace of reforms. you not only saw the faces of change, we also saw the faces of resistance. yemen's president appeared on tv saying he won't step down. on libyan television moammar gadhafi threatened to send hundreds of martyrs to attack europe. we have two guests with us to
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discuss this. let's start with gadhafi's defiant message, the nato military campaign, the opposition in his country, clearly unable to knock him from power so goes on state television today aiming his fury at nato and says this -- [ speaking a foreign language ] >> translator: we will target their houses and children and women. i have told you it is a tooth for a foote, eye for an eye. they know that but we give them a chance, a chance that may not last for long. >> nick burns, ranting, rambling. does he have any capacity of sending attack marttiers into europe? >> john, any time they make a threat like this, you have to take it seriously. he sent people to kill
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servicemen in berlin and brutally brought down pan am 103 in 1988 so he's done this before but this threat things hollow to me. there aren't tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of libyan citizens willing to go to europe. most want to overthrow him. it doesn't make sense what he's trying to accomplish. he wants to cut a deal, stay in power or exit gracefully without an indictment. if he does he will anger the governments to want to bring him down more aggressively. this one is gadhafi at his rhetorical worst and rings hollow to me. >> it begs the question does he want a negotiated deal or perhaps unstable? >> i haven't met him but always believed he's unable but nick is right. this is a guy having done these attacks -- these kind of things before. you've got to take it seriously. i do think now he said he wants to be a martyr. wants his blood on libyan soil but i think if they could find a
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way to cut a deal that didn't involve him being surrendering, he might take it. >> i almost spent too much time. nick, do you think president saleh have any chance of going back to yemen. >> he might. apparently you saw the statement he made. he was badly burned and injured. it may be months before he can go back to yemen but his supporters are running the country. his family members are still there. he doesn't want to give up power. he is the great survivor in middle east politics. i wouldn't count out the possibility of him returning to power in a couple of months. >> he is tenacious. the sudden byes and u.s., nobody wants had him to go back but the fact that he didn't relinquish power is an indication he wants to. >> we were all together in the early days of the revolution in egypt. the caretaker government is there and many of those protesters are worried think they're too slow to bring mubarak to trial. listen to a sampling from tahrir square today.
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>> translator: to us it feels like mubarak is still there. he might not be the president but very little has changed. it is still like a dictatorship. there is no freedom. >> nothing changed. nothing. just the face and the name. >> our army -- protecting themselves. >> nick burns, on the one, frustration and you might say they have a right to demonstrate and make demands of their government. >> you they certainly made progress in egypt but i think the demonstrators, the opposition in egypt is very concerned that the political time line is going to favor the muslim brotherhood. early elections and early constitutional reform. you see they're using these demonstrations in effect to pressure the government and that's very effective by the egyptians. you see it in syria, as well with demonstrations in those cities. >> is the egyptian government moving fast enough. >> this was
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