>> the lovely, whatever this creepy stuff is. >> reporter: that would be faux crocodile leather. in vogue magazine, they say they're redefining timeless style, not to mention redefining improvised weapons. ginger's daughter was left holding the bag while mom did interviews. ginger has no plans to retire her bag or to bronze it. >> it's my purse. >> reporter: jeanne moos -- i'm happy to meet both you and the purse. cnn -- >> i'm glad you said me before the purse, i appreciate that. >> reporter: -- new york. >> remember, you can follow what's going on in "the situation room" on facebook. just go to facebook.com/cnnsituationroom to become a fan. i'm suzanne malveaux in "the situation room." "john king usa" starts right now. tonight, trying to smooth strained relationships with corporate america. suffice to say the ways of washington don't always make sense to the people who run some of america's most successful

companies. if you ran your business like washington does its business, what would happen to you? [ laughs ] plus, "time" magazine name also its person of the year. he's 26. the right choice? we'll talk it over with two media loom neitharies. we begin with a big day here in washington. maybe i should call it a big word day here in washington. one leading conservative said it would be sacrilegious to debate a nuclear arms treatmenty so close to christmas. if christmas is the season of peace and harmony, washington is a little late getting the message. but hypocrisy, now that's a word and a practice right in washington's wheelhouse. we told you last night about a 1900 page, trillion dollar spending plan loaded with earmarks, and today, well, there was predictable republican fury. the next speaker of the house john boehner called it a slap in the face.

exactly the kind of behavior, he said, the american people jeekted in the last election. just one little problem, hundreds of the earmarks in the spending bill are republican yeasts, which takes the wind, if not the legitimacy, out of all the gop complaining. let's break down this complaint and the acrimonious final days of the congressional session with our guests. our national political correspondent jessica yellin and senior correspondent dana bash. let's show our viewers. we started breaking these down last night. the spending bill stacks up to about here. this is just some of the earmarks. republican side. remember, the republicans said, we're against this, this is horrible. 35 republican senators have 1,630 earmarks. here's some of the top republican earmarkers. senator cochran, known as a great appropriator, 230. wicker, 199.

grassley of iowa, 86. kit bond of missouri, 78. bob bennett of utah, 76. if the republicans are so anti-earmark, why didn't they go to the floor immediately and say, here's an amendment, take them all out, every one of them, every one that has an rncht behi "r" behind it, take it out today? >> i like one of the great appropriators of all time, bob livingston who said, you know what, the president's budget is a $1 trillion earmark. there's nothing wrong with members of congress wanting to put things in. >> wait a minute, wait a minute. what happened was, that earmarks got -- earmarks were to fix a bridge or to put in a railway station. they got mixed up with the sorts of things that we really hate about earmarks which are -- john king's got a big contributor in, oh, let's say, pennsylvania, and we want the pentagon to buy something you make -- that's a different deal. >> $100,000 for the philadelphia

hispanic chamber of commerce. i'm sure it's a worthy goal. arlen specter there. $30 million for the university of alabama at tuscaloosa for interdisciplinary -- we could go on and on. >> where do you think the research grants come from? it's all federal money. >> then why isn't the new republican leadership saying, american people, earmarks are good? otherwise, the president gets all the authority. so we're going to keep loading these bills up with earmarks. >> i don't think they said either one of those things. >> they made a pledge, the republican, not to do it. >> and you talked about senators -- >> as we talked about last night, senator mitch mcconnell, who did it -- it was not easy for him to do because he was a well-known earmarker, liked to send money back to kentucky. he has over $100 million worth of earmarks going back to kentucky. the question we were trying to ask today and we really got no answer is okay, they say that these earmarks were in this bill -- it was old, before they made this pledge.

>> it was before the election. it was before they realized helping them politically would be the -- >> here's what people need to know. that is that we were told, and i believe this to be true, that they could have gone to the appropriations committee, which put this bill together, and said, take mine out. none of them did. their argument now is, well, we're going to vote against it anyway. but perception is everything when it comes to this. >> here's what makes people i think hate washington, shall i say, or dislike washington. hate's a strong world, especially in the holiday season. republican senator john cornyn of texas. he's very mad -- he has a point, the democrats just sprung this bill on them yesterday. they want them to vote in a few days. it's a lot of money. he's outraged. >> i can't think of any other action that would show such profound disrespect for the american people and what they said on november the 2nd, than to try to jam through this omnibus appropriation bill that we saw for the first time yesterday, and as senator thune

described it, $1.2 trillion of who knows what. we're only now getting into some of the details. >> that's senator thune over senator cornyn's shoulder. that is an outrage, right? well, let's look at the record. in that bill that's such an outrage, earmarks requested by john cornyn, you just heard him there, 45. earmarks requested by republican john thune of south dakota, 26. >> those are two different things -- >> so when asked -- wait a minute, if this is such an outrage, why are your emarks in there, here's what he says -- >> we've said very clearly we voted for an emark moratorium. we will abide by that. and we will reject any earmarks rekwecquested by us or anyone e because that's what the american people told us they want. >> so now they're going to vote -- >> $1 trillion bill, the emarks -- >> -- they were for it -- >> i agree with you, earmarks are a tiny -- >> it's less than 1%. >> thank you.

>> however, they just ran a campaign to the american people saying we will make them go away. >> it doesn't give the democrats the right to drop $1 trillion bill on their heads -- >> two wrongs don't make a right. >> oh, talk about sanctimony please, john, please. >> the tea party express plans to go after those republicans who vote for this. >> then that's a political price they may have to pay. >> it's the height of hypocrisy, that's the problem. it's a very small part of the deficit. $8 billion in this bill. if we limited all those emarks, democrat and republican alike, we would pay off the deficit in 163 years. okay? no, the deficit. the debt would take another -- maybe the year 3063. seriously, i did the math. >> did you have someone else do it for you? >> my seventh grader, he's better at math. it's the hypocrisy that drives people crazy. mitch mcconnell, really, one of the kings of pork, there's one i saw in there, 4 million, with an "m," $4 million for marijuana

eradication program. that may be a good idea if you look at how kentucky's been voting, there's way too much pot smoking there, i'm all for it. but it should be done in a transparent way. it shouldn't be done by people who then say they're holier than thou on television -- >> you ask why they're not saying, i want this out? they're going to do that. another part of the story we haven't talked about is what we're probably going to see starting tomorrow and maybe into the weekend is that senator jim demint is going to force the poor senate clerks to read this nearly 2,000-page bill and it's going to take 50 hours, we're told, two full days, overnight. so once that's done and once -- and if they actually get out of this bill, you'll see republicans say, take the ear marx out, please. >> can they get to the floor and say take out pages 4, 5 and 6 before he gets to them? >> no. it's too late now. >> riveting tv though it may, nobody's going to be watching. >> when we come back, we move on

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the fight about earmarks wasn't the only thing in town today. the tax cut compromise the president struck with the republicans, sent it over to the house. can liberal democrats who don't like it, they think it's a giveaway to the rich, can they

change it? one of those fighting it, here's what he says the president is doing to get the votes. >> the white house is putting on tremendous pressure, making phone calls. the president's making phone call, saying this is the end of his presidency if he doesn't get this bad deal. >> that's how presidents lobby, right, everyone? if you don't vote for me here, this is the end of my presidency? >> you can only play this card a few times. >> didn't he play it in health care? >> yeah. >> and the stimulus package, we've been down this road. >> but this would be -- i think the deal is terrible for obama. not getting the deal would be catastrophic for barack obama. i was told vice president biden spoke to his former senate colleagues and said don't look for any logic here, this is just the deal, and we have to vote. >> that's a great way to run a country. >> it's called not peeing on my boots and telling me it's raining. it's democrats have to swallow

it. >> it's working -- >> it is working. >> 81 senators voted for it today. >> you got to give biden a lot of credit for that. he's a beloved figure, not just respected. >> the speaker said tonight she wants to change the estate tax provision but she's only speaker for a few more weeks. can she rattle up enough votes? >> that's going to be the thing we'll look for tomorrow. there will be a couple of votes in the house tomorrow. one with a minor change to the estate tax provision which we talked about almost every night on here to make it basically less generous to wealthy americans. and then the package that passed the senate today. the open question is whether the argument that the president has been making is going to prevail and whether enough people who are still upset about this are just going to say, we want to get this done with and we want to go home. >> this is the big thing they're fighting about now, the tax cut compromise. what about everything else in why is it so acrimonious? you said the democrats are trying to ram stuff down the republican's throats. you had jim demint saying it's sacrilegious to debate the start treaty before christmas. harry reid comes back with

sanctimonious. sankts monnious shellacking was the word of the month. now i think it's sanctimonious. why can't they just get along? get their business done, put things on the floor, vote up and down? >> well, because the american people have rewarded the republicans for being -- what a democrat would say, partisan and obstructionists. they just won the biggest landslide they won in many generations. they did it by being completely obstructionist. my problem is he and senator demint doesn't want to work on christmas eve. cops work on christmas eve. >> soldiers in afghanistan. >> but demint helped block legislation for health care for those 9/11 hero, the people who work on christmas and on new year's and all the holidays, who risk their lives for us, many now who have compromised health. that law should be obviously supported by both parties. it was filibustered by demint and his fellow republicans and they ought to be held accountable for that before they

say, i want christmas off -- because those cops and firefighters don't get christmas off -- >> i believe his point was it wasn't paid for -- >> no, they had to cut taxes for the rich is the republican position -- >> that is not the republican -- >> they all signed a letter that said we won't do anything, not even help the cops from 9/11 -- >> -- tax cuts for everybody, or else put it off until christmas eve. it worked because they brought it -- it worked because they -- >> -- the health care they need -- >> it's okay, keep going. the house did pass a stand-alone repeal of don't ask, don't tell tonight. allowing gays to serve in the military. so now they bring it to the senate. the president applauded the house for passing it and asking for the senate to do the same. will it happen? >> they have the votes. it could -- >> 60 votes -- >> it could parks it's just a question, will it come to a vote and is there time for it? there's enormous pressure from the white house to do this. even gates called for it. but the question is will they

actually allow it to happen, they being the republicans, where they slow it down in the time frame to prevent it. it would be an important win because the president needs to give something to his base now. >> that's a really good point. jessica's point also on timing, that's crucial, because with republicans making clear they're going to slow-walk everything that the democrats already have on the docket, ten days lefrt until christmas, i mean, if they don't get it done, there is pressure on reid to come back after christmas and do this before this congress runs. >> back after christmas, you ready for that? >> sure. we pay them a good salary. it's mostly indoor work. there's no heavy lifting. i mean, come on. >> they didn't have to take -- they didn't have to take eight weeks off between august and november. they could have actually stayed and worked. >> we'll see what they do. before we go to break, we promised you every night this week to explain what's in this tax cut compromise deal that's make its way -- it went from the senate, now it's in the house. one of the things in here is unemployment benefit extension. we've talked about the tax cuts. there's an unemployment benefit extension. nearly $60 billion. let's look at how it spends.

$34 billion of it would be in 2011. 21.5 in 2012. who would get this money? a subject of big debate. you look here, december, 2 million people who would have lost their benefits, they will get them now. next january, another 1 million people. and then in february, another 1 million. 4 million impacted over the next 13 months because of this deal. this one here is causing a bit of controversy. i get e-mails and tweets about this. if you'ven been unemployed for 99 weeks or more. you don't get anything. but after 99 week, you are maxed out. we're getting a lot of communications from the 99ers as they call themselves, saying they get nothing in this deal. it's in the house right now. as of now, they still get nothing. when we come back, top stories. and what's wall street's favorite beer? morning flight to london starts with arthritis pain... and a choice. take tylenol now, and maybe up to 8 in a day.

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welcome back. joe johns is here with some of the latest news you need to know right now. >> uncle sam taking bp and several other companies to court over that massive oil spill that

ravaged the gulf of mexico. u.s. attorney general eric holder says they violated regulations in failing to prevent april's oil rig explosion. from the northeast to the midwest to down south, much of the country is in a deep freeze. already arctic temperatures are expected to get even colder this week. along with more snow. and investors brewed up a big day on wall street for sam adams. they drove shares of the boston beer company up nearly 13% after the brewer hiked its earnings forecast. so a good day for one of the original tea partiers or at least the beer named after them. >> how much am i responsible for that? earnings going up? i don't have a stake in the company. i do have a stake in the earnings going up i think. >> you got a piece of the rock or of the beer. >> well, i don't think i'd call it a rock. joe, thanks for coming in. we got more to come on the program tonight. joe, you got me thinking about having a sam adams right now. think it's a little early

though. including "time" magazine's person of the year. he's the face of the facebook generation. was it the right choice? piers morgan, sam donaldson here to debate that one. the president today called a ceo summit. he's had rocky relations with the business community. and pete on the street has a question, why after the election do people still hold congress in such low esteem? ♪ leftover desserts, boardroom, now. and hurry before the interns get here. thanks but i already have some yummy black forest cake. black forest cake? ♪ so? [ female announcer ] need a guilt free treat? try yoplait light. and i've lost weight. [ female announcer ] with 30 delicious flavors like black forest cake all around 100 calories each. yoplait. it is so good. [ man ] i thought our family business would always be boots. until one day, my daughter showed me a designer handbag.

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a 26-year-old chief executive who runs a community of more than 500 million people is "time's" person of the year. facebook ceo chosen because of his role reinventing how we communicate and in growing the social network platform into what would qualify as the third largest country on earth. why did zuckerberg get the nod over, say, julian assange or the tea party? let's ask "time" assistant managing editor. why in the end mark zuckerberg? >> well, the person of the year issue of course is a way to assess what happened in 2010 and where we're going from here. julian assange and the tea party

were strong contenders. runners up in the issue. but when we thought about the ways that our society has changed, the ways that facebook has come to permeate our social relations, you know, not just with our close friends but globally, we felt he was the strong choice. >> often, this is a transformational figure. president obama has been the person of the year. vladimir putin has been the person of the year. what was it like to have a 26-year-old guy come in when you say, hey, guess what, you're the person of the year? >> for us, it's an amazing thing. it's not very often you get to put such a young person on the cover. the first person of the year, charles lindbergh in 1925, was actually 25, so he beats zuckerberg by a year. another young man who pioneered technology. but it's a very special case. i mean, i met mark zuckerberg during the process. he's an extremely affable young man. very energetic. but also very clearly focused.

has a real vision for what he wants facebook to be and how people will use it and how we'll use the web. very forward thinking. >> was there any downside in them saying, do we want to do it because of this? >> certainly if you look at the way facebook made news this year, there have been concerns about privacy, about how your information on facebook is used. interestingly, of course, the movie "the social network" portrayed zuckerberg as sort of an alienated loner and people came to any him as a movie character. what we found in the reporting is that the privacy concerns, you know, they have to do with people sort of learning how to project their identity online. this is an ongoing process. facebook is pretty responsible about the way they use their data. even if sometimes it's -- the privacy controls can be -- can seem a little difficult. >> thanks for your time. so let's take a closer look at

"time's" pick and the phenomenon. any place you see a light, that is where facebook has members. you see the darker lights up here, across the eastern seaboard of the united states. all across. this is facebook's global reach. let's take a closer look. what are we talking about here? it's the number two site in the united states. 700 billion minutes a month. 700 billion minutes a month spent on facebook. 70% of facebook users live outside the united states. look at this. 1 million, right, facebook users in 2004. look at this growth, bang, 500 million now. look at that growth over six years from 1 million to 500 million. that is extraordinary. who is mark zuckerberg? born in 1984 in new york state. star wars themed bar mitzvah. as a 19-year-old sophomore at harvard, he die seeded to -- what do we make of this pick? that's a great praise to start this conversation.

with piers morgan and sam donaldson. mark zuckerberg, 26 years old. facebo facebook. good choice? >> very good choice. in terms of significance and the influence that he has had on the whole planet, it's been pretty extraordinary. i mean, i've got on to facebook and just joined twitter. when you see the empowerment that he and people that run these kind of social network sites have given the pushgs ordinary members of the public, it's really quite remarkable. i think it's a good thing. i think it's empowered everybody. it's enriched people's lives. people are having more conversation i think than they used to. this sort of allegation that somehow people don't have the old-fashioned conversations. well, my children, for example, they're -- two of them in their teens. they are constantly now engaged in quite lively banter and discussion with friends all over the world. i think that's good. >> it is for the most part good. the one point i make is i think the friend, the value of the word friend has been somewhat

cheapened by facebook, not on purpose, i'm sure. a friend is somebody you would jump in front of a bus for. you get friended on facebook by people you never heard of before. our research shows you're not on facebook, sam donaldson. >> i'm not on facebook. there are three of us who aren't on facebook. i don't know who the other two guys are because i don't talk to them. if i want to talk to them, i pick up the phone, or e-mail, if i want to send them a picture. think the people on facebook -- think it's a reasonable choice, by the way. i think zuckerberg s met "time's" criteria. but if you want to talk to someone, you can do that individually. if you put yourself up on facebook, aren't you saying to the world, hey, ma, look, me, no hands, it's me, give me my 15 seconds of fame? >> he has revolutionized, though, to piers' point, the way -- making us a community. who else might it have been?

julian assange, the wikileaks founder, was one of the finalists. the tea party was one of the finalists. who else? >> i quite like the way they have the miners on there. in terms of global impact. look at the chilean miners story. most people i know probably lived that story through the prism of facebook or twitter. it's not the same as facebook in the sense that you don't actually have to have a friend, they can just be a follower. it's very interesting i'm now getting my news on a kind of constant stream from a social networking platform. and i'm getting it very, very fast. i can react to it. i can communicate my thoughts to it to the world which is quite useful if you're presenting a show on cnn for example. i also see friends of mine engaging in this thing who want to have a voice, who want to have an opinion. in the end, everyone's entitled to an opinion.

everyone can now have one. >> the empowerment force of this trend we're going to get. by the end of this interview, sam donaldson will join facebook. who else though? >> let me just say, first of all, everyone's entitled to their opinion. as pat moynihan said so famously, not their own set of facts. when i see people chartering back and forth, i think that's wonderful. i'm not a censor. i like to hear a fact. i don't even tweet. by the way, why do you have me on? i don't tweet, i don't facebook. who else? sarah palin. i really mean it. i'm trying to be very serious. i think the tea party movement would have been very large without her or senator demint as a, you know, kind of afterthought. but, still, using "time's" criteria for better or worse, she had a great impact this past year, the entire year. she lost some of her candidates. she won some of her candidates. the poor moose she shot. i mean, there's an impact for you. but i think that people like sarah palin, to me, are ones

that really move -- great movements of this country. >> she commanded attention in our national politics like no one else. a singular figure. love her or not. she was a dominant player in the tea party movement. she was a dominant player in the campaign this year. piers morgan, when you come across the pond to our style of politics, sarah palin stands out why? >> she's a mesmerizing character on television and television is now the most powerful medium outside of the internet for any politician. if you chart back really the empowerment of the internet to the public, look no further than barack obama's campaign. one of the main reasons he got elected was his very, very clever strategy of hooking in millions of young people through the internet. and making them feel part of his campaign. now, i think since then sarah palin's look the at this and thought that's a great idea. she tweets all the time. she's on facebook with millions of people as her friends, if you like. she's driving a movement through, again, the prism of

social networking and recognizing that if she can talk and communicate to people in a simple effective manner through the social networking sites, she's going to get votes. and it's become a very powerful tool not just for politicians but also i think for celebrities in terms of their commercial endorsements in terms of plotting their shows, their film, whatever it may be. we are now in a world where public blists and managers are going to go out of business because everyone can take care of their own affairs. paris hilton today for example tweeted me. now, she wants to get a free handbag, she just has to say, i like this handbag. suddenly, she gets one. >> you see what you're missing, sam? paris hilton cannot tweet you. >> well, she might be able to tweet me. i have not met her. piers has a point there. if everyone is a conversationalist. and we are too.

we say hello to people and our friends and what have you. but how are you going to have a television show like piers is going to do? tune in and say, i want to watch somebody who really knows how to carry on a conversation with someone interesting, if what you're doing is carrying on conversations with people who are not that interesting really, and you're talking about things that are not important? >> you raise a good point there. when my show starts in mid-january, i very much want to use the power of twitter and facebook to get people to send in suggestions for questions. i want to see their observations after an interview. maybe even during an interview. maybe in the middle of an interview, i can say, you just said something really interesting and it's electrified the country because i'm getting thousands of twitterers coming on with their tweets who want to know this. and that will be quite dramatic television. i would know absolutely that i'm putting the question to this person -- >> so you become the traffic cop -- >> well, to a certain degree, but also what you're doing is

you're being very inclusive to your audience and very interactive with them. i think we're in an era now, particularly in television, where if you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to do what sarah palin's doing politically and what barack obama did in his election campaign. you've got to get inclusive with your audience and you have to engage with them and interact with them. if you crack that, you can have a very successful show. >> it's a key point. the revolution, the technology revolution is happening whether we like it or not. you covered the white house in the days precable and covered the white house in the days post cable and it changed the world. a communications, revolution. the social network, fate book, et al, is part of the same revolution. a lot of the comments you get are inane. but every now and then, you see a mass communication from people of different stripes asking the same question or raising the same concern. you say, aha, this one has gravitas out there. >> that's right, but if everyone is playing, then who's leading? if everyone says, well, i can participate and ask all the

questions as well as everybody else, and i can weigh in, then where is leadership? why do we have the same thing that piers has been talking about or all of us have been talking about, for the presidency? instead of a president having a group of advisers, who have expertise in certain areas, yes, he keeps his finger to the wind to see what the public pulse is like, but he's supposed to lead. we have just simply -- everyone, call right in, tell me what you think. i think that would be disastrous, to tell you the truth. >> sam, i don't agree with that. i don't think you are abra gath leadership. i think you can lead through the prism of your own social networking platform. sarah palin is a great example of somebody who's doing that right now. she's not being accused of lack of leadership. quite the contrary, she is leading from the front, but she is using those platforms i think in a highly effective way to increase her core votes. and so i think it's down to the individuals, whether you're a celebrity, politician, you know, member of the royal family, whoever it -- buckingham palace

now tweets. because they've realized they can actually get right to the audience they want to get to in a very quick and effective way, and it doesn't cost much money, it's free. >> i'll agree that we're not going to go back. i don't want to go back to an era -- i don't want to stand in the way -- couldn't stand if i wanted to, of technology and the progress. everyone does get to participate. i simpler worry that people who want to participate don't come with any facts. they come with an opinion based on what? well, it's nice that people who got started in india, the one legislate ur, the idea that president obama was spending $200 million a day on that trip in asia, nonsense. yet it went around and -- >> until we did our job and said not true. >> does a lie ever get caught up with all the way around? >> that is a question to deal with as we go forward. we'll end the conversation there. you raise a good point about our job, our responsibility.

while we listen to everybody, we still have to have our own threshold of credibility -- >> when i watch piers -- i know something about him, although we've never met, he prepares for an interview, he knows the subject, and he knows the things that maybe people will want to know. i want him to ask the questions. i don't want some -- ten yo-yos out there who have never met this person and don't know anything, call in and say what do they like for breakfast? >> i will be the chief yo-yo man, don't you worry. >> oh, piers, you're a great guy. >> sam, great to see you, my old friend. piers will listen to all those tweets and posts on facebook and then use his judgment as well to make it all work. >> i'll lead from the front. >> starting right here in january. piers, thank you, sam also. when we come back, we'll check today's top headlines and also check in on the president's big meeting today. called 20 ceos. ♪ i hate suburbia and the bourgeoi-sie ♪ ♪ but i really love my bank

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welcome back. let's check in with joe johns on the latest news you need to know right now. >> a former member of this

parliament will spend the rest of his days behind bars. he was convicted of plotting to blow up fuel tanks. president obama's former right hand man looks like he may be the man to beat. a poll puts rahm emanuel far ahead of his rivals. emanuel is fighting legal challenges asserting he does not meet the residency requirement to run. and do your dental fillings contain mercury? an advisory panel is recommending the fda look more closely into the safety of fillings that have a mixture of metals and mercury, especially in children and pregnant woman. you know, i can remember when just the cavities were the issue, now it's the fillings too. >> now it's everything that's in them i guess. i could joke about the sam adams last time. i got -- that's a tougher one. >> i'm going to the dentist. >> that's the best person to ask, ask your dentist. good advice. you're good at that.

>> consumer. news you can use. >> when we come back, the president meets with ceos. they haven't always been happy. what happened today? if you live for performance, upgrade to castrol edge advanced synthetic oil. with eight times better wear protection than mobil 1. castrol edge. it's more than just oil.

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introducing the new web-connected printers with eprint from hp. there's been a constant refrain from wall street and the business community. the obama white house doesn't get us. the president is try to build better bridges to the corporate world.

including a big white house meeting today with a group of 20 ceos. among those, the chairman and ceo of honeywell. let's get right to that point. why do we hear so often when we talk to people in your position around corporate america, ceos, say, these guys don't get us? >> first of all, we've come through an extremely tough time. it's the worst recession in 80 years. and it's an interesting phenomenon i think of politics it seems is the president avoided a depression. the work that he did, everything he drove, the initiatives he drove, we avoided a depression. but in politics, and i think probably in the business community, you get zero credit for the problem you avoided. all that being said, we had a bad recession. and that bad recession, it strains relationships everywhere. it strains relationships everywhere. we had a strained relationship. if you're going to move forward, somebody needs to say let's

start over. think the president did a really nice job of that today, being able to say, look if we're going to be successful if we're going to have america the most co competitive country in the world, business and government needs to work together. business is the -- government is the enabler for business to be successful. i thought this was just a great way to start. >> let's look at the next steps then. i travelled to all 50 states last year. one complaint i heard from mom and pop small businesses to ceos of big companies like yours was about this uncertainty in the tax code. now you have this plan make its way through the congress that's only a two year extension but at least you have two years of certainty now. the president said at the beginning of the meeting this morning he is convinced that is what will get some of the money out of the bank, if you will, and on to street in new hiring, factory expansions. will you hire people because of this tax cut compromise? >> well, we've actually already started hiring. if you take a look at about the last six months, we've been a net hirer in the u.s.

the tax deal that was just struck, i'm fully supportive of. we need to recognize, given the significance of the national debt we're accumulating, which, by the way, will be $20 trillion in the year 2020, this is, while the right time compromise, short term, is absolutely the wrong type of compromise long term. what both sides were able to agree to is less taxes and more spending. >> so did you have a democratic president in the room today who gave you a commitment on that dead issue? >> he recognized there's only two variable, taxes and spending. most likely, both have to be touched. even within the democrat party, there are a lot of politicians in there who understand this and recognize the issue and that if we want to be the most competitive country on earth, we have to solve this issue and it's going to get solved one of

two ways. we can do it ourselves, thoughtfully and proactively, or we can let the bond market decide to do it. >> one of the marks on the administration, as you well know, is there's nobody like you in the administration. sometimes there's a ceo who's the treasury secretary or the commerce secretary or somebody close inside the white house. did anyone say to the president, mr. president, you need to reach out to us, not just in a meeting like this, but where are we, where are we on your team? >> no, not really. it wasn't a point of contention. and it's never been an issue with me either. i've always felt kind of that business focus is more a state of mind than having one of your 20 people be a business guy. i don't think that's as critical as the state of mind that says recognizing that business is the source of productivity, source of standard of living for the country, and a competitive dynamic business environment is essential for our competitiveness in the world. i thought that came across very clearly today. >> based on your experience, if you ran your business like washington does its business,

what would happen to you? >> well, i'd say they are two very different systems. >> but should they be? >> yeah, they need to be. because in one you want sustainability over centuries. what you give up is speed of response. but you get that sustainability. with companies, i think you want something different. you want guys like me being able to take chances and say, i'll make a decision, i'll move forward, but i can go bankrupt. there are people like me that go bankrupt all the time. we're not big enough to impact the system and the system moves on. but sustainability, the overall system, you need to have something that three centuries from now will still be working. i would say, one of my observations being on the fiscal commission, is that sometimes in a system like that people can start to reval in their pluralism instead of realizing that there are times you have to have collective purpose, that

you need to pull together. to me, this is one of those times. whether it's how we shift the economy, how we solve the national debt, how we get business and government working together better. this is one of those times, where we need to start working together and not pulling apart. >> david kote, appreciate your time today. >> happy to do it, john. >> let's get the administration's perspective now. valerie jarrett. going into the meeting, the president said he hoped to get these companies and others like them to take all that cash they have on the sidelines and invest it, expand factories, create jobs. the president left meeting saying he thought that would happen. is it just a hope or did he get specific commitments? >> i think every ceo represented has the same goal in mind and the collaboration was around what do we do to make sure we foster the kind of environment here in the united states where, number one, our companies want to invest and grow and create jobs and, number two, where we can enable them to compete on the global marketplace?

every one of those companies is fighting every day to make sure we're winning here in the united states and the president's message is he's behind them because he wants them to win. when they win, america wins. when america win, that's just what's good for our country and that's what the president's all about. >> you know this as well as anyone because you're often on the receiving end of the complaints. there have been a lot of complain com complai complaints. one ceo saying, i think this group does not have what it takes to create jobs. the most hostile environment to business than we've had in decades. i know you reject that, but after this meeting, do you have peace? >> i think what we have is a working relationship going forward. that ceo was with us today and offers constructive comments for how we can move forward together. we have far more in common than we have differences. that doesn't mean we're going to always agree. but i think we heard, let's work together, find that common ground. we do have the same interests.

in that we want to grow the economy. we want america to be strong. we want us to be able to compete globally. let's face it, we inherit add terrible economic crisis. i think every ceo there today said the country's in a lot better shape today than it was two years ago. >> the president's biggest ask was to get a lot of these big companies to take some money off the books and put it into investing and new jobs. what about the other way around? what was the biggest ask of the president? what did they say, mr. president, you can help us do that if you help us do what? >> i think many of them are looking for certainty. the demand will follow. i think what we heard around the table is people are beginning to feel better. the roundtable released the survey yesterday that showed their membership, many of them intend to hire, invest in capital projects they had on the hold for a long time. many of them intend to expand.

>> let me ask this, did the president commit to them? will you commit to the american people that when he puts forward his budget, he won't just talk about it, that he will put before the american people and the divided congress the tough choices? big spending cuts. maybe raising the social security retirement age. is the president going to be very specific in challenging the country, it's time to deal with the debt? >> well, yes, the president is most definitely committed to taking on the issue of bringing down the debt. i'm not going to telegraph to you what will be in his state of the union. what he did say, though, is his focus for our country moving forward over the next two years is to grow our economy, bring down the deficit, he wants to support our companies as they grow in the global marketplace. >> valerie jarrett, i appreciate your time today. >> where do americans rate members of congress compared to, say, reporters?

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okay, so set the christmas list aside for a second and build a new list. who do you trust? would congress be on it? how about that one, pete dominick? >> no, that wouldn't be on it. congress' approval rating matches the actual temperature in new york, 9%, 9 degrees. you know who people do trust? nurses. new gallup poll. 81% nurses get approval rating. grade school teacher, 67%. tv reporters, 23%. john king, why no offbeat reporter approval rating? >> we'll get gallup to ask that next year. >> fin