are not great for girls' self-es people, the boys don't have it any easier. here is what they're stuck with. winning isn't everything. it's just what i do. i'm the rock star of this family. coolest kid ever. do you know what kind of pressure that is, living up to the title coolest kid ever, while simultaneously pursuing your career in the music industry? really. now let me get this straight. the boys have to do homework, be winners while the girls get to go shopping with their bffs and sit around fawning over puppies and cupcakes. is that fair, jc penny? not fair at all. nonetheless, congratulations on becoming the official t-shirt supplier of the ridiculist. that's it for "360." john king usa starts now. see you tomorrow. breaking news from libya

where a manhunt by nato forces, muammar gadhafi keeps surfacing and taunting the world. earlier today nato bombed the barracks in baun knee wall lead where some reports say gadhafi may be hiding. if he is they didn't get him. a few hours later, gadhafi or presumably his voice turned up on a sympathetic tv network, al rae. >> translator: give up ourselves to them? we're not stupid. we are not cowards. the libyan people are brave. >> a few hours ago, the voice was back, this time gadhafi called on his followers to start an insurgency like the one that nearly destroyed iraq after the fall of saddam hussein. >> translator: we will fight against you, wherever you are. we will sacrifice our lives so that the son of libya will

become and the stones of libya will become fire and fight against you. you will never have peace of mind inside our land. >> cnn's senior international correspondent nic robertson is with us tonight in tripoli. nick, is anybody listening to these tapes? >> reporter: there probably are some people that are his tolist. i just met with the transtransitional council main military in tripoli. he said he still believes there are some people out there who williston gadhafi. i asked him about gadhafi's sons claims to have 20,000 fighters in sirte, the place where gadhafi has now said in this latest speech is now the center of the resistance. he said he doubts that very much. but he's not under any illusion, the military commander here, that gadhafi's message will have some people still listening to it. i also asked him specifically, do you know where muammar gadhafi is right now?

and he said he believed that he was somewhere between the towns of ben knee walid and sirte beni walid -- clearly didn't give me a pinpoint accuracy location. and i still get the impression from a military commanders here on the rebels' side they just don't know exactly where he is right now, candy. >> nic, you began to answer i think one of my other questions for you tonight, and that is we know that there are rebel leaders meeting in paris with other nations, talking about how they're going to put together a government in libya. are there signs on the ground that a government is beginning to take over there? >> reporter: i think what we're seeing on the ground is sort of, if you will, the reverse process of a government. normally you think of a government starting, forming at the top, cabinet government and

then trickles down. but we're seeing here when we go to the foreign ministry, principal hotel, when we go to former offices and buildings belonging to the regime or go to the port as i did today, you're finding there are groups of local residents who have been organized by local action committees, local national transitional council committees, to protect their neighborhoods, to protect buildings, to make sure there's no looting. this is completely different to iraq in 2003 where we saw widespread looting, where there was essential anarchy on the streets. here you've got this ground up organization. so there's a sense it's beginning. fuel beginning to be delivered to the gas stations, albeit the lines are still long, they're still slow. but the fuel's starting. the portis now a port master, a harbor master there. there are dockers turninging up to help offload some of the ships. so it's beginning. but more from the ground up we're seeing here from the top down yet, candy. >> nic, in the short minute that we have left, can you give me a

best-case, worst-case scenario based on what you're seeing as to the future of libya in the next month or so? >> reporter: the worst case is that laid out by gadhafi, an insurgency that will begin and grow over a longer period of time than perhaps a month. there is a concern amongst some military commanders here that this additional week given to the gadhafi loyalists to put down their weapons is going to backfire. it will give them time to dig in and feel that they've got a ration and a reason to fight. the best-case scenario is that there are political agreements that gadhafi is caught or compromised and handed over and that political agreements lead to the beginning of a transition to a stable government and control over the whole country. but we're still far from that. i think there's going to be a middle ground between those two scenarios, some time to go, candy. >> thanks so much, nic robb robertson.

muammar gadhafi was taunting the world from his hiding place, the men who will now be running libya were in paris meeting with world leaders including secretary of state hillary clinton. senior officials told cnn clinton intended to deliver some tough love to the new leaders telling them in effect, we want to help but you have to lead. cnn senior international correspondent jim bitter man is in paris. jim, first i want to show you and our audience something that you saw, a powerfully symbolic piece of video. that's french president nicolas sarkozy on the right of your picture walking out to greet the new leaders as they arrive for the conference. national transition council chairman is the man in the center. the council's prime minister, mahmoud skbrrkz abril on the left. the first obvious question, are we looking at the new leadership in libya? who are these guys? >> reporter: well, i think basically we probably are unless something happens here between here and there. i mean, they came here with a

message that they're going to hold democratic elections 18 months down the line. and in the meantime, they're going to be in charge of things. >> is there any feeling among those who have come to try to help libya put a government together about what should happen to muammar gadhafi beyond his capture, which still hasn't happened? >> reporter: well, i'm sure there'll be a lot of people who will want him dead. but fact is that most sort of sensible, civilized thing that could be done is to establish an institution, some rule of law and then put him on trial and then try him in a court to sort of show everyone how this works. i think to some extent that's what happened in iraq. but i think that kind of thing is what will say more to the libyan people than if it's just a simple revenge killing, if gadhafi's tracked down and shot in the streets. that really is not going to advance the idea that this transitional council is in charge of things and that it's going to sort of watch over this transition to the new libya in a way that's going to ensure

rights for everybody. >> french president nicolas sarkozy, jim, said that it was an honor of france to be in the lead of trying to help libya. but we know how quickly these things can develop, particularly in a nation that's known one leader for four decades. is there -- what is the sense that you get there among these leaders about the chances that something that is so wholly new, they have to build a government from the ground up among these tribal factions that you talked about. is there any sense on the chances this can happen? >> reporter: well, i think everybody -- that's a question they would probably try to avoid. they would like to say that what we want to do is give everyone the best chance and then see what happens. and the best chance is what they've come at tonight, they've already unblocked about $15 billion worth of frozen gadhafi assets, and they're going to put

those to use, the transitional council says it wants to put those to use to address the immediate concerns of the people, water, food, housing in some cases. so that's going to be something that will help them a lot. and then this nation-building exercise at the united nations the secretary general of the united nations said that they're going to be there all the way along the line helping to establish institutions, helping to establish a justice system. whether any of this will take place, like you say, the world's experience in this has not been very good. it has happened, but in some cases, the case of iraq, for example, it has taken quite a long time. one thing that they're hoping to avoid, by the way, with this quick action is what some people have said was the mistake in iraq, and that was the disbanding of the military and disbanding or the baath party. they're going to try to keep some institutions like the military. today a huge shipment of libyan bank notes was sent to libya basically to pay the civil servants and pay the military and keep them onboard so you

have at least some kind of structure to work with. >> sounds like they did learn some lessons from iraq. jim bitter mann in paris tonight watching with us a government being built from scratch essentially. thanks so much, jim. >> you bet. back in libya, fighters are closing in on towns still held by pro-gadhafi forces. as we said, nato bombed barracks in the desert town of bani wall lead south of tripoli. at the same time cnn's frederik pleitgen was with anti--gadhafi forces as they headed for the town. >> we've managed to get behind the actual frontline of the rebels. we're past the last outpost that they have. this is a small detachment. it's going to go on patrol in the contested area between the rebels and the gadhafi forces. we're in the vicinity of bani walid, one of the final gadhafi strongholds. these forces are gearing up for what could be one of the last offenses in the libyan civil war. as you can see, they have quite

a bit of fire power at their disposal. but right now they're going on patrol as they're gearing up to try to take bani walid. >> we are ready. we aren't afraid. god willing we will ender bani walid. >> reporter: we're now driving in a convoy inside the contested area. this is a place where really both the rebels and gadhafi forces have some people. the rebels say they have about 200 guys here in this area. they have several checkpoints along this contested area. they tell us they have both the manpower and the fire power to move into bani walid but it's not something they necessarily want to do because there's long-standing tribal foods between the people of misrata which is where these guys are from and the people of bani walid still holed up in that town over there. >> one important footnote to the libya story, it is 42 years to the day, september 1st, 1969, since muammar gadhafi seized

power in libya. and yes, he talked about that in his second audio blast a few hours ago. >> translator: after 42 years, the imperialists are trying to occupy libya once again, very openly and clearly, and in order to take libyans' wealth from the libyans' hand in order to make their own people enjoy the wealth of the libyan people. >> up next, a shocking new study reveals some 9/11 first responders have a significantly higher risk of getting cancer. c. so i take one a day men's 50+ advantage. it's the only complete multivitamin with ginkgo to support memory and concentration. plus it supports heart health. [ bat cracks ] that's a hit. one a day men's.

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breaking news tonight about health problems among the firefighters and recovery crews who spent months cleaning up after the 9/11 terror attack in new york. a study just published in the medical journal of the lancet, says new york firefighters who were exposed to dust and chemicals at the world trade center site are more likely to have cancer than their colleagues. the study also says that even though ten years have passed, 9/11 rescue and recovery workers continue to suffer a high burden of physical and mental illness. cnn chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta has been

investigating the health of these workers for over a year now. he joins us now from atlanta. you know, my first reaction to this, sanjay was, i felt like we knew that. but what got to you about this report? >> the cancer part of it, candy. i think there were all sorts of different studies in the past that have shown the health impacts of breathing in that dust, but they were mainly respiratory problems. as you know, candy, there's been a lot of back and forth about whether or not there was a cancer connection. never a definitive study showing one way or the other. now at the ter-year mark they have the luxury of being able to look back over this ten-year period and really being able to examine what happened to these first responders, and specifically the study that just came out just over the last hour shows that in the firefighters, specifically the firefighters who were first responders, they had at least a 19% increased risk of cancer. that is a very significant increase candy, among this population of people where there

was believed to be no cancer link. if you include all cancers, even those that developed quickly after 9/11, the number is actually as high as 32%. again, that is brand-new data. i think it's surprising, shocking to a lot of people. because even as recently as you know as of july of this year, they said, look, we've found no link between the world trade center dust and cancer. this study seems to contradict that. >> sanjay, i know you've been working on a special called "terror in the dust" where you've examined exactly what was in that dust. what did you find? and what other health ramifications have been found to be inside those particles? >> right. well, it was a wholly unique situation in the way that all these chemicals sort of became amalgams together. you could get benzine mixed with asbestos, all of it clinging to dust which hung like a mist over the year. people were breathing that. in again we know if you look and sort of try and desaifer what happens to the body when someone starts breathing that dust, those particles start to cause

health impacts right away. the world trade center cough was something you heard of, everyone herd heard of. but it went beyond that. after the respiratory problems it started to cause inflammation within the body as well that may be tgenesis of these canserses. one thing i will say if you think about what was happening in the couple of days right after these attacks, there were lots of gasses released into the air from the jet fuel and other volatile compounds. those things just disappeared. there was no recording of them. we don't know exactly how much of those substances were also breathed in by these first responders. we can only look at the dust and examine it. but the whole picture in terms of what they were breathing in we may never know. what we are seeing is the ramifications. >> there were responds who had hoped that their healthcare coverage stemming from problems out of 9/11 would be covered under the 9/11 bill that congress passed.

could this study change who is covered? >> that's a great question, and a very controversial one. as recently as just a month and a half ago, the answer seemed to be with respect to cancer the answer was no. they seemed to say that there was no evidence that dust caused cancer. this was a big study. it looked at fire department first responders over the last ten years, and really this lead study author who talked to me about this said there's no question in his mind that if a fire department responder developed cancer a few years after 9/11, there's a very good chance that it was related to their work on the file pile. so it may very well change. it's going to be controversy yeah there's going to be fights and debates. by the time they review this whole process again next year, this study may put an ex exclamation point on this and they may get help. >> you can see dr. sanjay

gupta's report "terror in the dust" this wednesday 11:00 p.m. eastern on cnn. joining us now, retired firefighter rocky who worked at ground zero after 9/11. what's your reaction to hearing what over ten years is a remarkable increase in the risk of cancer for many -- for all of you, frankly, the risk, that were there that day on ground zero and the many days thereafter? >> well, it's like you said beginning of your program before the doctor was on, you said we've kind of expected that and figured that this would be par for the course of what went on down at ground zero where 2500 known contaminants in that area, it's nice to start hearing that their studies that are backing what many firefighters and rescue workers and construction

workers are suffering with. it's about time these studies coming out of the federal government are challenged and challenged quickly and decisively so that firefighters who responded to a war zone, not a general fire, and the rescue workers, i include everybody, are compensated for it. >> have you stayed in touch with your fellow firemen? i know you're retired now. and other first responders in a way that you could tell me -- what is their morale, the morale of that community which really it became that day? >> well, you know, when you give of yourself in this type of job capacity, 99.9% of us love this job. and to know that when you were called upon that day, i was on the first wave of that. i came in later that night.

but to know that your city, your nation stands behind you in the aftermath in the post problems that are occurring that we all know of is very needed and needs to be supported, the firemen need to be supported like this. to start hearing reports from the federal government saying cancer is not in any relationship to ground zero, i'm not an expert. i've been at some of the hearings. i've heard some of the dialogue going back and forth. and to say that pulverized glass and asbestos and sheetrock dust and dioxines from the fire that burned for three months afterward isn't an effect on the firefighters and rescue workers is pure insanity. >> i want to take you back to that day just one particular moment, actually. this was later on. it wasn't on the day of september 11th. but you were the firefighter who famously called out to president bush who was standing on top of

the rubble talking to you all saying, "we can't hear you". and he responded, "i can hear you. the rest of the world hear you" et cetera et cetera. and taking you back to that day, there was a very throughout the country this just feeling of togetherness and resolve. and i wonder if you feel with some of these health things and other things that have happened that your country has let you down. >> well, when you go back to that day, candy, you have to remember we were all in a state of shock. we didn't know what to think. and when our president did come down, we have to recall the time and stepped on that crushed fire truck, he brought the country together at that moment, whether it was from the "i can't hear you shout" to his response to it, it seemed to galvanize what we needed to do as a country. to only find out later that some of our -- the politicians were pushing us to get back to that

area and saying it was safe and whatever reports they were getting or who was making the decisions, it seems as though that we had to continue doing our job, find our brothers that we lost and the people that were lost in that building -- those buildings. but we had to stay focused. so we couldn't get involved in the political minutaie that was going og around us. but now with federal studies coming out saying there's no cancer leak it tends to test your nerve. >> i imagine it does. a lot of things happened that day that changed all of us, definitely the firefighters police and new york firefighters they -- next the latest on what could be the next tropical storm.

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in the gulf of mexico today, oil companies evacuated workers from offshore drilling platforms, and new orleans, yes, new orleans began preparations for possible flooding and heavy rain. all because of a potential tropical storm that hasn't actually officially formed yet. we want to get a look from cnn meteorologist bonnie snyder. bonnie, what are you seeing? >> reporter: right now we're seeing the beginning of a lot of rain for the southeastern parishes of louisiana and southern mississippi. i'll show you right now what's happening on the radar. you'll see those thunderstorms rolling on in.

i wish i could say this would last just. it's likely to develop into a tropical system, maybe even within the next 30 minutes. we're getting reports that possibly for the 8:00 advisory the national hurricane center may upgrade this from just an area of disturbed weather, possibly, to a tropical storm. the next name on the list is lee, incidentally. so here it is on our satisfy per respectively notice the bright reds and oranges and purpose else. that indicates the higher cloud tops. they're pretty widespread across the northern gulf of mexico. wind shear breaking it up but you have to realize the water temperature throughout the regis 88 degrees. so the atmosphere is very ripe for something to happen. when you take a look at the computer models, a lot of them are taking the storm a little farther to the west. here's lake charles in louisiana and texas. it would be great if we could have all the models pushing

towards texas. texas really needs the rain. but there is divergence into where the storm will go and when it will get there. it's possible it could me and ier through the gulf of mexico for you a few days. that is very bad for new orleans. when you have a storm sitting in the gulf it can continue to push a lot of rain into this region. we are seeing up to 10 inches of rain easily by the latter part of the weekend if the system does sit and spin in the gulf of mexico. but right now we're still monitoring it. it could change and we have something to keep watch on. but we may have another tropical storm in the gulf of mexico as early as this evening. we will keep you up-to-date. >> tis the season i guess as they say. bonnie snyder, the cnn weather center, thanks so much a much different concern in texas. firefighters are battling several major wildfires. the largest west of dallas has burned dozens of homes up. but firefighters may be gaining the upper hand. cnn's jim spellman joins us from the front lines. jim, yesterday you were pushed back because it was seen as you

were too dangerously close to the fire. and it does sound like now the firefighters are advancing on the fire as opposed to the other way around. >> reporter: yeah, that's right, candy. now they're saying it's 50% contained. we were right here yesterday as fire was coming across this ridge right here. and spot embers were coming across the reservoir. they were concerned a fire would break out on this side. they had to striekt command center, up with it. right now you can see the helicopter working all day dropping on this fire. they're going to keep at it. still only 50% contained. so they want to just keep at it until this fire is completely out. because all those factors still remain. extreme heat, high winds and drought, candy. >> can people go back at least to the areas that are not still on fire? can people go back to their homes or what's left of them? >> reporter: yeah. they're allowing some of the people back, the people that were evacuated yesterday. the areas where the 40 or so homes that burned, they're not

letting people back there yet. there's only one way in and one way out of a lot of these communities. they want to be sure that all the fire's completely out before they let those people back in. candy? >> it's a big tourist area, too. what's the outlook for labor day? >> reporter: they're really trying to get it open. there are already parts of the lake reopened now. by saturday they want the whole lake open. listen, i wanted to show jkusa viewers this. they call position sum kingdom pkusa. they have these shirts made up here. john king fans they want to make sure they got this to him. we'll send this on. when he gets back i'm sure he'll enjoy the souvenir. >> i will have him check his mailbox. jim spellman of position sum kingdom lake, texas. thank you next up outrage in congresswoman gabrielle giffords's arizona district over a republican fundraiser. stay with us to find out what they're auctioning off. ♪

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welcome back. here's the latest news you need to know right now. outraged democrats in congresswoman gabrielle giffords's arizona district are accusing republicans of "something that pulls a scab off of a wound". as a fundraiser, the republican party held a raffle for a glock handgun. it is the same make of gun jared loughner is charged with using to shoot giffords and kill six others last january. the republican party chairman defense the raffle telling cnn they have done it for years. the los angeles times reports chinese investors are putting up part of the money in a $1.2 billion cash offer to buy the l.a. dodgers. there is no deal yet libya is an oil-producing country, but right now they have a gasoline shortage and gas lines. cnn's dan rivers waited in one along with some tripoli residents. >> reporter: well, the fuel situation in tripoli is still

pretty bad. there are still incredibly long queues. it's better than it used to be. but check it out. this is the back of the queue for gas. i want to show you just how long it is. this queue just goes on and on and on. it's ironic, because libya actually has the largest oil supply in the whole of africa, the ninth largest in the world. experts say it has some 23 years of oil reserves. and before the war it used to pump about 1.3 million barrels a day. but now all the people in this queue care about is when these petrol queues are going to subside. some of them say they've been waiting in the scorching heat for hours. and finally, this is the front of the queue. the coastal road is opened so it means some supplies are coming in. but you get the idea of just what an agonizing wait it is

simply to fill up your car. >> pump prices are one of the biggest drags on the u.s. economy. next up, will things ever get better ♪ okay, so who ordered the cereal that can help lower cholesterol and who ordered the yummy cereal? yummy. that's yours. lower cholesterol. lower cholesterol. i'm yummy. lower cholesterol. i got that wrong didn't i? [ male announcer ] want great taste? honey nut cheerios. want whole grain oats that can help lower cholesterol? honey nut cheerios. it's a win win. good? [ crunching, sipping ] be happy. be healthy. can i try yours?

better? better? a brand-new report from the obama administration says nearly 3 million heems have been possessed since 2006.

another 5 million are in danger of foreclosure. so will home prices ever get back to normal? and by the way, what is normal? hg tv host mike aubrey is a licensed realtor. we have seen in an s & p index that the huge housing crash that we all knew was happening in '08, '09, started to go back. and we're thinking, okay, they've stabilized. they're going back down again. what's happen snlg. >> you know, i think this is not rocket science. not rocket science at all. things got better, and that hand in hand went with the first time home buyer tax credit and the move-up tax credit. i think people started to believe a little bit. >> stimulus package, right? >> correct. it was problems up synthetically, basically. things got much better. and then at the wake of that we saw unemployment higher than we've seen it in a long time. a simple fact exists. when people don't have jobs or are afraid that they're not going to have jobs they're not buying houses. we're seeing a drop again.

i mean, all due respect to the case shuller index, i think i could have told you this with a blindfold on we would see this coming. >> what is your feel for this? is it going to go back down to the levels we saw earlier, a year, a year and a half ago? is there some point at which you think they'll stabilize or is it all tied to that unemployment rate? >> i don't think it's all tied to it. the first time we saw a drop, i think that drop was based on the very unstable nature of the real estate market itself, how problems up it had gotten. >> basically overinflated prices for homes and people underable to pay for them is what caused the crash to begin with. >> i think economics 101, it was supply and demand. there were more people who wanted homes than there were available homes for them to buy. that then caused them to go through the roof. and what you saw was john q public decided to be a real estate investor. they started to buy properties they had no intent of ever living in, and they got caught holding the bag when we saw the crash happen.

i think this time it's far more insaidous. i think what we're seeing this time is external factors to the real estate market are causing is to go back down again. and i guess to address your question, what i'm concerned about is that there are so many balls in the air that are affecting this thing right now, it becomes an extremely complex equation to decide exactly how we're going to cure it or when it's going to stop. do i think that we're at the bottom yet? probably not. do i know exactly where the bottom's going to be? maybe not so much. i mean, that may be a question better to ask secretary geithner because i think that's the guy who i know has the toughest job in america. >> and you may have already answered that, that is what stabilizes things? it's just a more stable economy. is it that simple? >> i think it's definitelily a more stable economy. i think it's also, what can we do for the people who should be buying houses who do have great credit, who do have job security? how do we make them feel better? because we want those people to

go out and get loans for as cheap as they are seeing mortgage rates basically ever. >> right. >> and i can assure you, we will never see rates like this again. so is it a great time to buy? it's a perfect time to buy. why? because however much more the market goes down, when you look at a 30-year fixed loan, what you're going to get in the gift that keeps on taking with a higher interest rate is going to more than make up for what you will lose if the market continues to go down a little more. >> we did a show july 4th about the american dream. that's aums been about your little nest egg, your home, is that gone in. >> i don't think so. i think the american dream is still there. i think there's a pretty good parallel between the securities market and the real estate market. my broker will tell you all day long, if you're going to look at the stock pages every day, mike, i'm not your guy. but if you put your money with me and you let it sit there for 20 years, i can assure you i'm going to show you a great return at the end. real estate is the same way. we have to stop seeing homes

like we might see a share of google. this is not only a place to live, not only is there emotional value to it, provided they don't get rid of the interest deduction, which i know is some concern right now, provided they don't get rid of it, home ownership will always do well. you can beat the market by owning it over a protracted period of time. and that's sort of what the american dream was about and that's the american dream people need to get back to. >> because growing up, to me my father's mantra was always buy real estate. forget this. not even the stock market. buy land, buy housing that's not true anymore. now it's this is something you want for you. and if you want it for you and you plan to stay there then it's a good investment but it's not as say a this is how i'm going to make money in the short term? >> i mean, i think that it is a far different prospect to be a real estate investor than it is to be a real estate owner who has bought something to live in. i mean, i'll go back to your

father. i bet your father never bought a house that he didn't put 20% down on, did he? >> right. >> and i think that's sort of another one of those changes in terms of redefining the american dream of home ownership. >> and you know, when you're deciding whether to buy a home, and you mentioned we had the subsidies, we had that first-time homeowner, does more of that need to happen? i mean, the president now is looking really at jobs. you don't often think of homes in that same category as creating jobs. but might spur construction maybe ten years down the line. there's a lot of vacant property out there at the moment. but do you think that more subsidies are needed, more of that sort of first-time homeowner tax break? >> you know, here's my concern. i mean, as a realtor i want any subsidies that we can get. why? because that's going to help me sell houses. >> sure. >> i think as a student of the game that is the real estate industry, i would suggest this to you. this becomes the proverbial band-aid.

do we want to take it off slow, or do we want to take it off fast and feel the pain? my answer is, take it off fast. get rid of the subsidies. get rid of synthetic propping up of the marketplace. go through the painful period, allow the market to naturalize and get back on our own two feet again. i think that until we go through that painful period which we seem to be deferring and staving off, we're never going to get through this thing and get back to a normal place. >> just as a final yes or no piece of advice to wrap this up, if you have good credit and you're in such of a home and a place to live, now's the time? don't wait to see if you can time the housing market? >> i agree. i think it is absolutely the time. i say this from the bottom of my heart. if you have good credit and a good job, go and buy a house right now. >> mike aubrey, hg tv real estate. thank you. >> thanks for having me. next up, it took some wrangling but president obama does have the date for his address to a joint session of congress. did it have to be this hard? [ grandma ] why do relationships matter?

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right now.

quick drum roll because

house speaker john boehner invited president obama to speak to a joint session of congress at 7:00 p.m. next thursday night and the president accepted. wasn't that easy? in washington with us now, republican strategist rich galin and cnn political contributor hillary rosen, a democratic consultant whose firm has worked for a number of candidates in federal congressional elections. seriously you want to set your hair on fire. this cannot be good for the white house or republicans on capitol hill. >> no process battle at a time when a country is panicked is a good thing to have. and i have to say, the white house chief of staff called the speaker, how about wednesday? he said, okay. and there it went. >> can i just ask you, do you believe that the white house didn't know that republican debate was wednesday night? >> yeah. i don't think that's really the issue, though. because the republicans would have had a lot to talk about in response to the president if they wanted to. >> we're not allowed to decide

on behalf of what the debaters are going to do or not do. i mean, i don't think there's any question that white house was sitting -- we've all done this, sitting there, going, i know what we'll do. and they got caught at it. and it's too bad. but your bigger point is exactly correct. the process nonsense has got to stop. they've got to start acting like big boys and girls and stop making believe this is like a wrestling match where we're constantly measuring who's got the upper position and who's got the lesser position. every 30 seconds at a time. >> the irony of it was that sort of the two people who were having the conversation, john boehner and the white house, really are the two people who were the grownups kind of this summer as well when we had the big budget fight. the question is going into the fall we're having all of these budget battles, when the president is encouraging the american people to encourage their members of congress to be sensible, to come together, to come to the table, work together to move this economy forward, are they going to go with the

more practical john boehner instinct or are they going to go to the right of their party where a majority of them don't want to compromise and have already said so? >> i just wanted to turn it because the president -- i mean, the main headline here is the president is going to talk about jobs and what he wants to do about jobs. "wall street journal" editorial board had big praise for john huntsman who's languishing in 1% of the polls here since he got in, basically, saying, boy, he ought to give the republican response because it's a really good program. in the end, you can have as many serious people as you want talking about this. is anything really going to happen? >> well, i think there was some good news today. senator toomey, who's very conservative and is on the gang or 12 or whatever, the supercommittee, has said today in pennsylvania that he was more than willing to look at adjusting the tax code to be able -- as revenue raisers. i mean, i think that stopped

everybody cold. >> then that's huge for toomey who comes from -- >> i may not have it exactly correct. >> he'll call us later. >> my phone's vibrating in my pocket. >> contrast that with what's happening in the republican presidential primary where every one of them to a person said that they wouldn't even trade $10 of spending cuts for a single dollar of revenue increases. >> that's the difference between being a candidate and having to actually make a decision. >> president obama is not going to run out there and be a candidate on next week. he is the president. and he's going to -- >> but is the president -- we're just in a presidential election cycle. the president could have given this speech from any venue he wanted to give. >> wait a second. you know, if the president had gone out somewhere else in this country and gave that speech and talked about what congress needed to do to work with him they would have said, why are you out there campaigning? come back and talk to congress.

congress needs to work with the president to make this thing happen. and he's going to give some specific things that congress should do. >> it's about time. >> whether the republicans will step up is a big question. >> that would be a great switch if the president actually came up with a concrete proposal instead of as leading from behind. >> realistically speaking we are in a budget ln cutting mode whether you're democrat or republican. we have democrats pushing stimulus to help the economy, but by and large everybody is about cutting. what can the president realistically propose that we a haven't heard before or b is big enough to move these jobs numbers? because that's what the problem is here. >> well, a few things. because there's a lot of things that have been on the table for a long time. the president has talked about for a long time. >> patent reform and trade deals. >> which perhaps did stimulate the economy in the 1980s. >> but long term. economic report's