wealthier americans. so we're hearing a similar debate on the senate floor today but also some resignation that while it's not perfect, it's a first step and that's why many believe that they will pass the 60-vote threshold very shortly. >> within minutes. we're awaiting that. kate, stand by up on capitol hill. we will go to jessica yellin. she will be in the rose garden getting ready for the president of the united states. gloria borger and john king are here with us in our d.c. studios. gloria, what are you going to be looking for specifically in this roll call vote? because some of these members, republicans and democrats, who are up for re-election next year, it's a sensitive vote for them. >> yes, particularly republicans who may be challenged by tea party conservatives. we know that senator orrin hatch of utah, for example, is going to vote against this and he may be facing a challenge from a very conservative house member, and so you're going to have to see new members, new tea party

members, how they're voting and it will be interesting to look at the moderate conservative democrats in the senate who are running or may be challenged to see whether they actually vote for this or not. >> i think it's clear joe manchin, democratic senator from west virginia, i think he's already made it clear he's going to vote against this. >> he doesn't like this plan. if you are from a conservative state, west virginia, he's a democratic senator, former democratic governor, but west virginia, if you look at the presidential politics of late, has been trending conservative. the general consensus among the political strategists is if you are republican or conservative democrat, the safe vote is to vote no. i talked to sherrod brown last night, from ohio. he will vote yes. he wants to say he voted for deficit reduction. liberal groups are angry with him because they think the super committee opens the door to social security cuts, opens the door to medicare cuts. but we are seeing here, you just saw mitch mcconnell and harry reid disagree. mitch mcconnell said you might not believe it, my tea party friends, you might vote no but you won here. you won because we have changed the tone, the tenor and direction of the debate in

washington, it is now about cutting spending. harry reid got up and said he finds it very, very disconcerting, the impact of the tea party. well, we'll see how this plays out but on the point of impact, mitch mcconnell's right. the lawmakers have changed the debate in washington. you mentioned senator hatch. this is his speech. 1286 words. i counted them. i used a computer. i used a computer. to say why he's voting against it. we all know senator hatch. he used to do deals with the late senator ted kennedy. he's a deal maker. but his best friend in the senate, robert bennett, was defeated last year by a tea party candidate, who is now a united states senator in utah. 1286 words could have been summed up in 14. i saw what the tea party did to my friend bob bennett last year. he's not going to vote yes. >> you can't really overestimate the sea change that's going on right now in washington. because you're right, these tea party conservatives have really shifted the debate. remember, barack obama when he started this and said i want a clean debt ceiling -- >> which happened 70 times in the past.

>> and mitch mcconnell also made the point, i think he's absolutely right, he said the template for the debt ceiling has now changed because it's always now going to be associated with deficit reduction. we've been in the process of stimulus spending for the last couple of years, to try and get the economy jump-started. now we're going to a new era of real fiscal restraint and economists disagree, actually, about whether that's the right thing to do to the economy but we are clearly shifting right now. >> no question about the politics. gloria's right. the economists say you're going to slow federal spending at a time the economy is weak, whoa, isn't that counterintuitive, don't you want more federal spending to help. political economics say cut spending now. just ten days or so ago, go back and find the president's radio address, he said it would not be fair, it would be unfair, his words, to sign a debt ceiling agreement that did not include some revenues coming from more wealthy americans. the president today will sign a debt ceiling agreement that does not guarantee any revenues

coming from anybody. it could come from the super committee in the second round of this but they don't guarantee it. the president had to compromise here even though the democrats control the white house because republicans control the house and effectively have veto power in the united states senate because it's close enough. all of these debates will now carry over. this is going to quiet the debate in washington for 24, maybe 48 hours. the super committee will get set up. we will go through this around thanksgiving and debate into december. more spending cuts, possible tax increases, social security, medicare, and guess what? we flip the calendar, we're in 2012. the american people, i hate -- i get angry e-mails about this, this is what the voters have done with divided government. in 2008 they sent a left of center president to washington and a big democratic majority. in 2010, they said never mind and sent a very conservative house and more republicans to the senate, maybe 2012 will be the tie-breaker or maybe we will get more muddled and confused. >> if nothing gets done and we end up with some other kind of gridlock or the public doesn't like the cuts that are enacted, maybe they will flip again.

the public has been quite fickle and made it quite clear we want you to work together and both sides say that's what this has been about but we have to see what happens at thanksgiving. >> as john says, we're getting into the presidential election season. i think with the exception of jon huntsman, the former utah governor, former u.s. ambassador to china who supports this debt ceiling agreement, all the other major republican candidates, including mitt romney, oppose it. >> all said no. newt gingrich said he would have a plan of his own which is essentially saying he could not embrace the plan on the table. his reaction a little more nuanced. with the exception of the former governor of utah, jon huntsman, who is trying to position himself as i'll call this the old john mccain, the centrist, pragmatic conservative in the middle, to the right but in the middle, he says this is a pretty good deal. it's a down payment. governor huntsman says essentially what senator mcconnell just said. not as good a deal as we would like but a step in the right direction. you have to take that. the other candidates, this gets back to the point, look at our

polling. the american people in our poll yesterday, maybe they haven't processed this yet but the initial reactions are i don't really like this deal. it is the consensus of especially on the republican side that as this deal gets older, just like the bailout, just like t.a.r.p., it will become less favorable with the public so the safer vote now for especially a conservative is no. >> let me reset what's going on so our viewers know what's going on. we're watching the floor of the united states senate. they started their roll call just a little while ago after wrapping up the debate on this debt ceiling agreement. we expect it will pass fairly soon and then they will hit the gavel, they will declare it passed. the house of representatives passed it last night. it will go to the white house for the president's signature. within minutes after this roll call is complete, the president will then go into the white house rose garden and make a statement to the nation. we expect it to be about 10 or 15 minutes. the president will outline what has happened, why he supports this, but then he's going to try to move the story forward a little bit and get into the

bigger issue of a frail u.s. economy and the need for job creation. he'll have some ideas and i think he will put them forward at that point on what the country needs to do. we're watching all of this. we've got our correspondents, kate bolduan on capitol hill. jessica yellin will join us shortly from the rose garden. we are watching what's happening on wall street as well. gloria, pick up this notion that there's obviously going to be between now and thanksgiving a real intensification of this debate, because it hasn't been -- they may have agreed to keep the debt ceiling as a nonissue between now and the start of 2013, but the whole issue over taxes, entitlement cuts and all this, it will continue. >> it continues. what's interesting about what john was saying about the presidential candidates here, it's as if they have been living in an alternate universe because congressional leaders, republican congressional leaders were saying we have to get this debt ceiling done.

but when you're a presidential candidate, you're sort of freer to say no, no, i would vote against the debt ceiling. what the presidential candidates are doing are playing to the base of the republican party and they're saying no, no, no, but they're free to do that because you know what, a lot of them are governors, et cetera, except for michele bachmann who obviously voted against this. but in 2008, you had senators running who had to vote for the t.a.r.p. bailout and so it's a different dynamic now. >> there was a senator in the bush administration, democratic senator from illinois, who said it would be a bad idea to raise the debt ceiling. when you're being -- >> that was then. >> we've seen this. we've seen this, candidates for president when they become president often change their opinions. it will be interesting to watch should a republican win the next presidential election, how they navigate the next debt ceiling increase. but in the short term, wolf, this argument is not ending. this super committee, you heard both senators talk about naming their members. the house leaders have to name members, too.

it's even, six senators, six house members, six democrats, six republicans. they will have to deal with all the issues we've gone through the last two weeks. what do we cut, defense, food stamps, education spending, pell grants? is it social security? is it medicare? do we raise taxes? if so, on who? this debate's not going anywhere. it's going into this committee of 12 and then will come back, they have to vote again this year up or down, then off to the campaign. >> as of right now, 48 senators have voted in favor of this legislation, 16 have opposed. they need 60. that's the threshold in order to get it passed. we expect that will happen very soon. i want to bring in alison kosik. how is wall street reacting to what's going on in washington? >> reporter: you're not seeing the positive reaction you'd think you would see. the market's been lower all day and the dow down about 94 points, the nasdaq off about 20. i've been talking with traders. they're surprised that by getting this uncertainty about a debt deal off the table, it hasn't created a different reaction.

there was the expectation we would see stocks at least in the plus column. we're not seeing that. i think what you're seeing is investors really worried about the broader economy. i think at this point the debt ceiling issue is kind of -- is sort of behind them now and wall street's now looking forward and looking forward at the economy, and it's looking weaker. we got that weak gdp report last week showing that economic growth is definitely slowing down here in the u.s. we got that weak manufacturing report that kept stocks in the red yesterday. and today we got more weak data on consumer spending showing that consumer spending is slowing down as well. then there's, of course, the jobs market. just because we get an agreement through here doesn't mean that companies are going to start hiring. in fact, some experts say the deal will most likely have little effect, if any, on hiring growth but this is what wall street wants to see. it wants to see hiring growth, it wants to see jobs created. we will get a better picture of that on friday when the big government jobs report comes out. wolf?

>> just want to point out, 56 in favor of the legislation so far, 19 opposed. so the yays, 56, the nays 19. they are getting close to 60 which is what they need. they'll get that very soon. a lot of analysts have suggested to me that the markets, they basically discounted, they basically assumed there was no way, no way that washington would not raise the debt ceiling, knowing the consequences of failure. they just assumed that would happen and as a result, they're not all that excited about the fact that it's about to pass the debt ceiling is about to go up because they figured it would -- the opposite would never happen because that would have been an economic disaster for the u.s. economy. is this the seventh or eighth day in a row it looks like there's going to be a downturn on wall street? >> reporter: it is the seventh -- this could be the eighth day, if we close lower, this would be the eighth session in a row. sure, stocks are being hammered, not because of the debt deal but because of what you said. sure, the markets really

understood that a deal was going to happen at the last minute, not the last second like we are today, but you know, they did think that a deal was going to go through so that was sort of already baked into the market. now as you know, wall street once again is forward-looking, looking at the economy and the picture is not very bright. that's why you've seen the market down for so many sessions in a row, wolf. we're seeing this economic data come in and it's just not good. >> we just hit the 60 mark so it has passed. they're not going to change the votes. this is not a huge surprise. there are 60 senators who have now voted in favor of this legislation. so the legislation will pass. they will wrap up the roll call in the senate, they will hit the gavel and within a few moments, we will hear directly from the president of the united states. on friday, john, the jobs market, the jobs numbers for july are going to come out. i suspect it's not going to be a huge number. >> it's expected to be anemic. that's why alison makes a critical point about the economy and the politics of the economy

going forward. the president will focus on this. the debt ceiling, we avoided what some thought would be a catastrophe, we avoided default, avoided for people watching at home their mortgage or credit card rates going up but the unemployment rate is 9.2%. it is expected to stay stagnant like that. since fdr, no president has been re-elected with the unemployment rate above 7.2%. there is no question it will be above that when barack obama asks the american people to give him four more years. so how does he try to convince them he's doing everything he can to help create jobs? well, this deal ties his hands in some ways, because the president says let's have an infrastructure bank, let's spend more money on targeted things, let's give research and development grants to encourage new investments in technology and new hiring. however, he's just about to sign a ten-year agreement that says we're going to bend the arc on spending in washington, not cut spending but bend the growth of spending in washington. it makes it much harder to do what he wants to do. it makes it much harder for any democrat to do what they want to do in terms of a bit more activist government. so the president has a huge challenge. what he's hoping here is that this deal helps with the

psychology of the private sector and they feel more confident, but the tax question which many employers, ceos have said, is uncertain. >> it eases a huge burden potentially but doesn't necessarily guarantee, gloria, and we're following the breaking news out of the united states senate, they have now passed the legislation raising the nation's debt ceiling, following the lead of the house of representatives last night. eventually later today it will go to the president for signature but even before he signs it, he will go into the white house rose garden to make a statement to the nation, indeed to the world. even though this has passed, even though the president is going to sign it, the aaa credit rating that the united states has may not exist. i think it will exist for the next few weeks. >> it is more likely that it would. >> they really wanted moody's, standard & poor, they really wanted a $4 trillion projected cut and this is going to be $2.5 trillion if that. >> you're right, but the president's hope as john was saying is this will give businesses some certainty. they're sitting on a lot of

money right now. maybe they'll start spending that money, maybe they'll start hiring. what you're going to see in the democratic party, don't forget, this has taken the president completely off his message to talk about job creation and so we've heard a lot from the republicans about these job-killing tax increases. well, the president has to talk about job creation right now. nancy pelosi's going to have a press conference this afternoon about job creation, not wasting one minute because that's what he wants to talk about to the american public. >> let's go to the rose garden. our chief white house correspondent jessica yellin is standing by. is the president in his remarks, i assume he's not going to really dwell and look back and refight this war that we've just seen here in washington. he's going to try to move this situation forward a little bit and talk about where the country has to go from here. >> reporter: absolutely right. he's looking ahead at what the nation needs to do, exactly what you were talking about, to create jobs next, which is where the american people are focused.

and he faces a particular challenge because over the last weeks, as we've seen even in senator reid and mcconnell's statements, we've seen this intense acrimony between the parties in the last debate so the challenge for the white house is how does he move a jobs agenda forward in the context of this gridlocked washington and as we head into this political season that is facing us. for the white house, it's not just these priorities we keep hearing from the president about this infrastructure bank and patent reform and getting construction workers back to work. of course these are all priorities. but there are also two key things they wanted in this bill, in this debt deal that were not there, payroll tax extension and extension of unemployment insurance. those are two issues that the white house here will try to push going on later in this year. big question whether they can actually get it through congress. they have also made it clear that they will give guidance on what they would like this debt commission to tackle going forward. >> so the president will walk

out, i see the podium behind you over there, jessica, is he going to be surrounded by the vice president, a whole bunch of aides? is he coming out by himself? what's the game plan? >> reporter: i don't know who is going to be with him but i do know that this white house does plan to sign this bill this afternoon, just as soon as it is delivered to them. this deal will be signed, sealed and delivered by the close of business today so we can all move on and get this debt ceiling raised and past us by close of business tonight. >> how sensitive are officials at the white house that the president is really getting a lot of criticism, forget about from the right, from republicans and conservatives, but from his own base who feel he could have been tougher in these negotiations? >> reporter: you know, there's sensitivity but it also comes with the turf is the attitude you get. not surprised because concessions were made and this was a bruising, brutal fight, but there's a sense that because of the nature of the fight, because it was so brutal on both

sides, that there's a likelihood democrats -- that democrats i speak to feel that it's likely that republicans will suffer from this, too, so you look at the polling, you see that the american public views republicans in as negative a light as they view democrats now. some polling shows sometimes more in congress. so they think the liberals and their party, yes, they're angry, they'll get over it in a sense and there will be other fights to fight going forward. >> a hot, sunny day in washington, d.c. jessica, stand by. we will be getting back to you. john and gloria, it's sort of reminding me, tell our viewers if i'm right or wrong, triangulation which was a word we heard during the bill clinton presidency around the same time, i must say. >> we spent a lot of hot summer days in the rose garden covering the clinton white house together. yes, where you have a president, now, politically, triangulation is the president cuts a deal that sort of makes both sides mad and he works with the republicans enough to anger the liberal base but in the end, nancy pelosi, you have to help deliver 95 votes to the house

yesterday to get that through. nobody's happy in the end except the president, who gets to say i'm the man in the middle, i'm the reasonable adult who made both sides compromise, and i look good to the middle of the electorate. the early polling shows he had established that ground. more recent polling is more murky. to jessica's point, it is the white house calculation liberals will get over this. we are in a 2012 presidential election, something else will come up but there are some democrats, including close to this campaign, who are beginning to warn them that just on the margins, this will not be 2008. 2012 will be a more competitive election. we are going to have 8% or 9% unemployment. we saw in 2010 how big states that obama carried moved back to the republicans. will they swing back all the time? most people think not. it doesn't take much in a 50/50 competitive election, if liberal turnout is down just a little bit in northern virginia, just a little bit in north carolina, just a little bit in cleveland, just a little bit outside denver, guess what, four states that were key to the president winning could be in play. so there are a lot of democrats

saying be careful how much you think they'll get over it, they'll be with us in the end. that is why when david axelrod left the white house, he said priority one was getting in touch with the base because he knows there are wounds to be healed and maybe more that will be made before you get to november 2012. >> the white house is making the argument to liberals that what they did in this was key the social safety net intact, that when republicans wanted to make medicaid, for example, a part of those triggers and the eventual cutbacks, the white house said you know what, stop, no, we cannot do that. so what joe biden was on the hill telling liberal democrats yesterday was we protected the needy in this country from these potential cutbacks and that's the argument they're going to be taking to the liberal base, and they also believe it's always compared to what, that they are going to say okay, you liked the paul ryan budget, you liked the

voucher program for medicare, well, go vote for that, then, or go vote for barack obama. so again, they're going to use the ryan budget and they're going to wait and see what comes out of this committee, because if they can reframe the debate the way it was after the paul ryan budget and they were the protectors of medicare, i think they would take that argument. >> i don't think there's anyone seriously thinking on the democratic side of challenging the president for the democratic presidential nomination the way ted kennedy challenged an incumbent democrat back in 1980, jimmy carter. >> no, but i was having a conversation with several prominent democrats, including our contributor, donna brazile recently, who said they were hearing rumblings that some liberals said let's find somebody to fund a third party liberal candidacy to stand up and say obama's not tough enough. is that going to happen? i don't think so. but the depth of the sour grapes and raw feelings, again, the challenge for any incumbent is very different. i believe and most democrats believe the challenge for this

incumbent democrat, because he ran as an aspirational, transformational hope candidacy, did inspire some new voters to come to the process. if they somehow feel they were let down, it's harder to get them to come out to fight, not just to vote, but to volunteer and to come to the office and to do all the little things the obama campaign did masterfully in putting together a great campaign. if they're off their game just a little bit in a competitive year, could make the difference. look, it's a long way out but that's why when axelrod left the white house, they understand if it's a 50/50 race, it is critical they get back to nuts and bolts. >> let me remind our viewers we are awaiting the president of the united states. he will be walking out of the west wing of the white house into the rose garden to address the nation. the senate has just done what the house of representatives has done, passed this debt ceiling agreement. we'll get the final roll call number. but overwhelming support in the united states senate for harry reid, the majority leader, mitch mcconnell, the minority leader, they came together just as nancy pelosi and john boehner came

together in the house of representatives yesterday and passed it overwhelmingly in the house of representatives. no one is really all that enthusiastic about this deal but they have a deal that allows the debt ceiling to go up, avert a potential default, the united states government unable to pay some of its bills. that was the disaster that could have awaited the u.s. economy if it were to happen. it's not happening right now. but this debate will continue. i'm curious, john, if you think this is a moment, a lot of us who covered ronald reagan back in the '80s remember the deals he worked out with tip o'neill, who was then the house speaker. is this a moment where there's a new relationship now between the president, the speaker and the republican leader in the senate along the lines of what happened back in the '80s? hold on one second. >> any senators wish to change their vote? if not on that question, the ayes are 74 and the nays are 26. the motion to concur in the house amendment to senate bill 365 is agreed to.

>> so there you have it. dick durbin, the democratic senator from illinois, the majority whip, announcing the official vote. 74 in favor, 26 opposed. gloria, that's sort of the number we anticipated. i assumed it was going to be more than 70. >> yeah. there's a little bit of padding there. i'm curious to see who the 26 are and how that breaks down. >> some republicans who are seeking re-election. >> and how many of them are up for grabs, right, or facing challenges. we'll have to take a look at that. in terms of your last question to john about the relationships, it's interesting because from my vantage point, i think senator mitch mcconnell, who is clearly key here, really preferred to deal with joe biden more than anybody else, because they had a previous relationship in the senate and i was told that the senator believes that joe biden could close a deal, where barack obama might not have been as able to do that. >> all right, guys.

the senate has just formally gone into recess. we expect the president of the united states momentarily to walk outside of his office in the west wing into the rose garden. let's take a quick break. our coverage will continue right after this.

you're taking a look at the rose garden at the white house. the president momentarily will be walking out of his office in the west wing of the white house, he'll walk down those stairs to the microphone and will address the nation. the united states senate by a vote of 74-26 has just passed the agreement, the debt ceiling agreement raising the nation's debt ceiling, follows a vote, a strong vote in the house of representatives last night. eventually later this afternoon, the documents will be sent to the white house, the president will sign this legislation into law. he's not signing it into law right now. they've got to do all that paperwork first. i'll be curious once they do send that document over to the white house, will there just be a photo that the white house will release of the president

signing into law, will they have some sort of ceremony. they probably won't. this will be the moment that the president will address the nation. he's going to make the case of moving forward right now, use this as an opportunity to do what the economy needs, what the country needs, start creating a whole bunch of more jobs. easier, obviously, said than done. we've got our correspondents standing by, jessica yellin is over there in the rose garden. kate bolduan is on capitol hill. kate, the house of representatives after they voted yesterday, they immediately announced they are going into recess and members don't have to come back until early september, after labor day. is that the senate's game plan as well? >> reporter: i assure you there are many senators that have their bags packed and are ready to head out at this moment. i believe we are going to be hearing from senator reid as well as the senator mitch mcconnell on their plans for them to come out to the cameras after this vote. we'll be looking to hear what they have to say. i can assure you through the hallways, i have been talking to a lot of them as you know

throughout the past few weeks and many have said they're very much looking towards this august recess. i can assure you they probably have their plane tickets already in their pockets. >> yeah. they want that august recess. they will come back on september 7th or september 9th, at least in the house, that's when they're going to come back for the next round of votes. there will be criticism why are these members supposedly going on vacation. they always point out they are going back to their districts, back to their states to work on constituent issues, hear directly from their constituents, hear directly from people in their states and many of them will be going on overseas trips, fact-finding missions as they call them, some call them junkets, to see what's really happening, whether in iraq or afghanistan or fiji, for that matter. paris or london, whatever. they got to go find the facts. we have covered these stories for awhile. one senator or representative's fact-finding mission is another's junket, if you will. >> some of these get very

criticized and some of them should be. others, i'm just going to name names, i will name two, a democrat jack reed of rhode island, a republican, john mccain of arizona, tend on these trips to go to iraq and afghanistan and spend some time talking to the troops and talking to the generals and talking to the government officials and they go to places like pakistan. it's hard to begrudge anyone who takes that trip. those are vital national security. some of the others are international conferences. at a time when spending is the issue, is when these trips come up for play, how many staffers did you take, are taxpayers paying for spouses to go along. yes, they come up. most often that is a circus or sideshow, the debate about those things because look, it's hard to say this but 99.9% of the members of congress are decent, hard-working people who you might disagree with politically who maybe there's a little bit of shopping on these trips but if they're trying to do their work, they are trying to do their work. there are bigger issues facing the country than who is going where on a codel. >> i'm really interested to hear