bill: i'd pull over. alisyn: you'd pull over? then what would you do? open it up? the snake could slit they are into your car. bill: i could run. alisyn: do that i think that is the answer. bill: we'll see you tomorrow, everybody, "happening now" starts right now. jon: no snakes in this show we hope. we have fox news alert. reports coming in of a major salmonella outbreak, the sauce appears to be ground turkey. a drug resistant illness that has killed at least one person so far. rick folbaum is following the story. >> reporter: people in 22 states have been affected by this so far. one of those people have died. thinks the result of ground turkeys sold in supermarkets earlier this year. the cases started appearing in march and new cases are still popping up now. ten people have got even sick in the state of ohio. ten more in michigan. nine in texas. and then there is a whole slew of states where there's been at

least one case. the way to avoid salmonella r-r food poisoning is to cook ground turkey whether it's fresh or frozen to an internal temperature of 165 degrees fahrenheit. you have to use a meat term mom tere to make sure it's at the right temperature. that will eliminate the risk. no word on ground turkey recalls at this point. but if we get any information we'll bring it to you right here. jon: please do. this fox news alert on the debt dole as we await a final vote in the senate on that contentious issue. hi, everybody, i'm jon scott. jenna: and this is august second, i'm jenna lee. this is default day. we'll go to capitol hill where the senate will take action. jon: they will vote on the bill to raise the limit on america's credit card. it is widely expected to pass as it did yesterday in the house and then it heads for the

president's desk. hrepbz doug mcelway is live with more. what should we expect today. >> reporter: there is very little doubt, jenna that this thing will pass in the senate today. even those who plan to vote yes are not terribly excited about this proposal. virginia democratic senator mark warner who is going to reluctantly vote yes, he is one of the authors of the gang of six proposal. that proposal was worked on by a group of by part son senators for month and much more aggressively addressed the fiscal issues of the united states was rejected. >> the fact i've been working on this issue for the last year, that we worked in a bi-partisan way, that we actually had a plan laid out, because i think this plan is frankly much too small. hao*eufpl a reluctant yes, we need to be closer to $4 trillion in debt reduction. we node to address the two major problems that are not addressed in this plan, entitlement reform and tax reform.

>> reporter: warner's words may ring true when congress returns from its august recess to face a new fiscal year and even tougher budget choices ahead, jenna. jenna: as senator warner pointed out a reluctant yes. how about the no votes? how many of those are we looking at. >> reporter: we've heard for sure, senator mike lee of utah. lindsey graham. jim demint. rand paul is another probable know. jeff sessions plans to vote no. one of the biggest concerns that he has is this a rangement of the super committee which is contained in the bill which sessions believes usurps the authority of the senate finance, budget and appropriations committee and is accountable to no voter. here is sessions. >> this is an erosion in many case of public accountability. we haven't had public debates, we've seen this deadline coming. i've warned that it would happen at the last minute. i was afraid in the 11th hour

and here we are at at 11th hour the 59th minute. really we could have had a great debate this year had this thing been done weeks ago and should have. >> reporter: sessions maintains this is exactly what happens when you pass a bill, rush it on through under extreme deadline pressure under these kinds of circumstances circumventing the normal legislative processes of hearings and committees. he doesn't want to see it happen again. jenna back to you. jenna: regardless we have that vote, noon eastern time. thank you very much to doug mcelway. we are keeping a close eye on the dow right now. down 86 points right now after getting disappointing new numbers on exactly what we are doing with our money, what we are spending, what we are earning. this is a monthly number on personal income and consumer spending and needless to say it did not impress investors. here is what you need to know about today, if the cow ends down today it will be the 8th

straight lower close. you have eight straight closes down on the markets and that would make it the longest losing streak in nearly three years. three years ago was october 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. that's what our markets are toeulg with today. we'll keep you up to date as we hear more. jon: take you toee evacuate where top u.s. military officials say we are making headway in the fight against iranian-backed militants. weapons traced to iran contribute tog a surge of violence this summer, but joint chief's chairman admiral mike mullen says a new approach to the problem is dramatically reducing a number of attacks. jennifer griffin is on that from the pentagon. i know 4 that admiral mullen was in iraq. what has he said about change there, jennifer. >> reporter: he noted that the number of attacks in the last two to three weeks has gone down markedly and he said that it was basically due to a number of special forces raids against iranian-backed groups that were iranian weapons, and also from

pressure placed by the prime minister nouri al-maliki who has gone to iran and asked that the attacks stopped. if you look at the number of u.s. service members killed in action in june it was at its highest there were 14 u.s. service members killed in action, nine of them by iranian-made rockets. try were killed in action in july. that is remarkably lower than in june. 41 service members have been killed this year alone. a spokesman says a contribution of iraqi special forces operations backed by u.s. forces have cut down on the iran can attacks but admiral mullen usual you'd the following warning. >> you is clear that tehran seeks a week iraq and an iraq more dependent upon and beholden to aspersion world view. jon: what other kinds of

sweeteners you might call them, pressures have the u.s. and the iraqis pushed the iranians with. >> reporter: half a dozen individuals in iran were sanctioned, syrians who were helping to move funds to al-qaida. that was embarrassing for the iranians and put some more pressure on the government there. and then there was an issue with a well-known militant, a he hezbollah who was being held since 2007. iraqi officials said he would be transferred to the iraqis. many u.s. military commander's worried that that meant that he would then be transferred to iran and eventually released. a number of senators wrote to leon panetta, the secretary of defense about this and the transfer has been put on hold. it's hard to know whether the iranians were promised ali dak d

u.k. jon: interesting. jenna: drivers recovered celina cass' body in a river about a quarter mile from her home. they are calling her death suspicious. david lee miller has more. >> reporter: authorities are saying that the girl's death is being treated as a criminal matter but they will not elaborate of the details of this on going investigation. news of her death shocked the close knit community where she lived with her mother, sister and stepfather. her body was discovered about 10:30 yesterday morning in the connecticut river during a routine search. they say how it got there was no accident. >> we have made no determination on where her body was eventually put in the river. we are trying to do that. now we have located the body we will be able to hone the investigation to make that

determination. we have a specific and general louisiana rised area to look at. >> reporter: there are no suspects and they have not identified a person of interest in the investigation. yesterday morning at the same time her body was discovered, her stepfather collapsed face down in the driveway of the family home and was rushed to a local hospital. according to public reports he has a troubled past, he has an arrest record for criminal trespass and violating a restraining order. he had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. the judge said he was incompetent to stand trial, he posed a likelihood of damager to himself and others, jenna. jon: we've touched on the big stories of the day but we have much more breaking news to tell you about. the search for a missing tennessee nursing student gets a major boost today. how a citizen's group is keeping the three-month-old trail from going hold. jenna: moments away from a

historic senate vote on the debt ceiling. the latest from capitol hill and what it all means for your bottom line. plus rick folbaum is live with the three stories you get to choose from. >> reporter: this is you decide and we report. we've got the stories up on the "happening now" home page at foxnews.com. let us know which one you want to hear most about. carpooling, literally, we'll tell but that, a car in a swimming pool. how did that happen? we've got the story for you. also, there is a a yoddling school in the german alps of course we can tell you about that where folks can go, a. out in the u.k. a police officer gets hit by a car, but continues to do his job. maybe that is your choice. again, you can vote and we'll have the story for you coming up and more "happening now" after a quick break, don't go away. ugh, my feet are killin' me.

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jenna: new information and a new search on a case threatening to go cold, this after a 20-year-old tennessee woman simply vanished back in april. rick, this is a story we covered a lot when it happened. our viewers might recognize her name. >> reporter: her name is holly bobo. this is the missing nursing student. you mentioned she hasn't been seen since april. the last time she was seen was actually by her brother. he says that he saw her being led by a man wearing hunting camouflage from her home in johnson city, tennessee, into the nearby woods. this is a case that just has

pwufld investigators. now there is word that molly's mom has recruited a group of local paragliders to search for her daughter. the head of the group said car even bobo reached out to them because she was frustrated at the slow pace of the investigation. here he is describing what he and his team can do. >> we'll have the ability to look vertically straight down unencumbered. we can see straight in the corn fields and straight into the woods. >> reporter: there is an $85,000 reward for any information that leads to holly and the arrest of whoever abducted her. if you know anything you're asked to call the tennessee bureau of investigation, and their number is 1800tbi das find. jon: fox news alert.

all the drama on capitol hill is not over yet, with the national debt seemingly spiralling out of control, we are hours away from it bumping up against its tkraoelg. e ceiling. senator john cronyn a republican from texas is on the budget committee and chair and he joins us now. senator you say you are a yes vote. you say it's a good deal, why? >> i think it's the best deal we can get given the fact that president obama who was initially demanding a clean debt ceiling vote, that is without any cuts or tax increases during a fragile economic recovery that would have killed jobs, we've avoided both of those, we've avoided default and i think it's a small step in the right direction. but the thing i think is most seupt is how the debate has shifted after the 2010

elections, now we are talking about cuts rather than more spending. we have a lot more to do perhaps through the 2012 election. jon: you have a vote promised here for a balanced budget amendment. >> that's very important. thanks for bringing that up. by october we will have the vote on the balanced budget amendment. we came within one vote in the senate in 19 the 7 of passing the balanced budget amendment when the definite was 1.7 trillion. it was compelling back in 97 to get within one vote, it is even more compelling today. jon: that's what some of the detractors say about this thing. you've still got $14 trillion worth of debt out there, and, you know, no signs of erasing that any time soon, if ever. >> well, that's why i say this takes us a small step in the right direction, but this select committee that will be appointed

will report back no later than thanksgiving with another tra u.n. che of cuts and we will be able to make reforms. they are not limited in any way. we could do entitlement reforms, tax reforms, additional cuts to get us on the right glide path. right now we are just slowing the train now, not divert -rg the train to a safe track. it represents progress, that's the reason i'm supporting it. jon: how is that committee going to be chosen? >> there will be three people appointed by the republican leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell. three appointed by john boehner in the house and three democrats appointed by their counterparts, so it will be evenly divided. i think there is a lot of understanding, growing understanding, and seriousness on capitol hill about dealing with the problem you identified at the outset, and that is the debt. this debt ceiling vote is just a

landmark in what is a larger challenge, which is our debt, which is killing our recovery, and which is -- threatens our future prosperity. so we have to deal with it, and thinks the means to get to that process. jon: it seems when there are critical decisions to be made they get punted to a committee. do you think the committee will be effective. >> i think it's set up to be effective. there are so-called triggers, an automatic sequester that takes effect, cuts, across the boards if the committee doesn't report back with sufficient reductions in spending. so there is going to be a lot of pain associated with failure, so i hope it gives incentive congress to do what we need to do, and that is begin cutting and to get ourselves into a sounder fiscal situation. jon: senator john cronyn republican of texas, we know you have to get to the vote here soon. thank for being with us. jenna: we'll bring you the vote

live when it happens. turning to international news syria is facing criticism from around the world. supporters of the regime calling on aasad to stop the brutality. how about this phenomenon, have you ever seen that stuff? jon: i mad them. jenna: are these messages from aliens or high-tech art projects and physics. that's right, physics. we'll explain it straight ahead. every day, all around the world, energy is being produced to power our lives. while energy developement comes with some risk, north america's natural gas producers are committed to safely and responsibly providing decades of cleaner burning energy for our country, drilling thousands of feet below fresh water sources within self contained well systems

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acquisitions. we are watching the senate debate here on remote 260, i believe that is the senator from new hampshire. she is giving her two cents worth on this debt vote set to come up in a little more than an hour. on remote 258 there is the capitol dome where it's all going on. beautiful day in washington. hope they can get beautiful work done one way or the other. oh, it is hot if you look at remote 294 there is the weather map in this country. hos, hot weather all across the u.s. maria molina will be along in just a bit. on remote 217 the things are getting ugly in syria. even some of the countries that normally have syria's back are angry about the number of deaths, more than a hundred people killed, especially in cities like hama, where there's been a bloody crackdown by the aasad administration.

dominic dnatali is live with more. >> reporter: yes indeed, another day of bloodshed in syria. we are hearing that at least one person has been killed by snipers in the town of hama. apparently soon after nightfall -- or rather after night prayers last night the syrian military forces started shelling mosques. people were gathering for the first round of prayers during ramadan, the holy month. the united nations security council is meeting for a second day to see what response it can get to the ongoing killing of civilians and protestors calling for democracy in syria. we are expecting a statement later on today. the secretary of state hillary clinton will be meeting with expatriot syrians to see if they can isolate the aasad regime even more. the ambassador to today mass cast has been called. they are calling on all european

countries to withdraw hair ambassadors and diplomatic missions. whether this turns into increased sanctions remains to be seen. allies in syria in the name of turkey and russia who are reluctant to criticize the regime have applied pressure. it seems that syria is en route to be isolated internationally as we have not seen before. on top of that the government has started to ramp up its propaganda machine. it started airing tv, protestors were armed and firing back at government troops. they say that at least six soldiers were killed over the weekend adding to a total of 300 syrian soldiers killed by the protestors. there is no confirmation of that, because western reporters are not allowed inside. an escalation of violence

continues in syria, jon back to you. jon: dominic, thank you, reporting live. jenna: scientists say they may be one step closer to solving a mystery that's had them scratching their head for decades. have you seen these sth they are called crop circles. enormous symbols mysteriously appearing on large areas of farmland. some believe it's uf organizations but could physic actually be behind the imagine i can shape. mitch kaku is a scientist. michio, skwro*p has taken responsible for a few of these crop circles out there. what are the actual theories behind 4 this. >> if you have a stake, rope and wooden planning you can create your own crop circumstance knell one hour. in 1978 that was the first recorded crop circle and two pranksters admitted that they did it and they duplicated for

the press in one hour. now with gps, lasers, and also with microwave ovens, you can create intricate patterns as detailed as any that you see in science fiction movies. >> why would you want to do that? >> for years ufo buffs are saying no way can a human create these intra indicate circles. jenna: look at those, we'll show that video again, they are complicated. >> that's right. that's why we physicists see this as a challenge, okay, in a few weeks artists and physician s*euz assists will be going to stonehenge and we will try to duplicate these patterns. jenna: you mentioned gps. you mentioned a microwave oven. are you telling me people are bringing microwave ovens into corn fields. >> that's right. you take a portable generator,

take an extension cord, take in your microwave oven. you have to do the whole thing within a few hours and create these beautiful patterns very rapidly. microwave ovens could be the trick. jenna: michio are you getting in on this. going to southern england, getting in on the competition. >> no, i have to teach, right. jenna: we'll see how the competition goes, bring you back for maybe some analysis on whether or not it is physics or maybe ale lee ands. always nice to have you much is that what you're using, jon. jon: now i have a new trick. it makes i easier i guess except for hauling the thing out in the middle of the corn field. a deadly heatwave is not over for millions of americans in the mid kes and an even more dangerous blow for mother nature as violent storms knockout power to thousands of people. live in the fox weather center just ahead. plus, with unemployment above 9%

still, and the pace of new hiring not very good, it's a pretty gloomy picture of the u.s. economy. what will get our nation hiring again? former hewlett-packard ceo and senate candidate carly fiorina joins us next. are you receiving a payout from a legal settlement

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jenna: most of the violence tied to political infighting. and we're also keeping a watch

on the dow after some dispinting economic news today -- disappointing economic news. consumer spending unexpectedly falling .2 of a percent next month, that's the biggest drop in nearly three years. jon: the debt ceiling deal, if it happens, could cut up to $2 trillion in spending over the next ten years. now, that sounds like a lot, but with a deficit that already tops 14 and a half trillion and climbing every minute, economists agree this deal will make a relatively small dent at best in america's debt problem. james rosen takes a look at it live from washington for us. james? >> reporter: jon, good afternoon. let's begin with the bottom line which is that nothing that's happened here in the nation's capital over the past 72 hours has done anything to alter our country's medium or long-term fiscal trajectory. and the credit ratings agencies continue to watch uncle sam with a wary eye. this is n large measure, because

those negotiating the last minute debt ceiling deal across both parties at the white house and capitol hill tacitly eye greed to leave the major pieces of budget reform alone now including social security and medicaid and the estimated $1 trillion a year that our tax code contains in tax breaks of various kinds. in all, this deal aims to cut about two and a half trillion from deficits over the next ten years, but we will be borrowing another ten trillion or so over that time. a report released on july 14th by standard & poor's, the credit ratings agency, stated and i quote: we expect the country's debt trajectory to continue increasing in the medium term if a consolidation plan of four trillion is not agreed upon. testifying last week, standard & poor's president said his ratings agency had only cited that $4 trillion figure as being within an acceptable range of outcomes. >> what speaker boehner and president obama were talking

about when they were looking for the bigger deal seemed to be roughly in that neighborhood as well. but in the end we sort of got into a negotiating down where each side was taking things off the table. >> mcginn necessary called the deal struck sunday night, quote, a drop in the bucket, even spit in the ocean, unquote. sean west noted that the package, quote, doesn't have a lot of actual cuts and provides little clarity about the u.s. trajectory in the medium term. jon. jon: james rosen live, thank you. jenna: we're going to look ahead here a little bit. as we mentioned, the debt deal is expected to clear the senate in about a half an hour and move on to the president's desk for final approval. with the unemployment rate still hovering over 9%, there's the question on the minds of many be of us about what's next for the future of our economy. carly fiorina is the former ceo of hewlett-packard, and she's joining us now. carly, nice to have you on the program. >> great to be with you, jenna.

good morning. jenna: let's start with why and then talk about how to fix it. so when it comes to the economy, why, why are we still getting this disappointing economic news? >> well, i think there are two fundamental things. first, small business is flat on its back, and small business creates so many of the jobs in our economy, up to two-thirds. and all of the data suggests that small business just simply isn't hiring. certainly, i know that anecdotally from talking to so many small business owners across the country. secondly, the consumer as reflected in the data this morning, the consumer isn't spending. in part, they're not spending because they realize over the last couple years they need to save more, but in part they're not spending because everything costs more starting with energy, now creeping into food. those two things are a huge drag on our economy. and they also suggest what we need to do. we need to help small businesses hire again, and i think that means reforming the tax code, it means getting these regulations

and requirements off of their backs. and, ultimately, we need to restore the entrepreneurial culture in this country to create enough jobs. jenna: you've advised many business leaders, obviously, been a business leader yourself. you just mentioned the consumer, and just a moment ago i said consumer spending, the biggest drop in three years. it's actually two years, but it's a significant drop regardless. what would be your advice to just the average american family out there that's trying to make it? >> well, first, i think the average american family is doing something that we all need to do, and that is save more. and, in fact, two years ago i was asked a question on this network, well, do you think consumer spending is going to rebound quickly? and i said at the time, no, because consumers realize they have the save more. so that's good news, although it's painful for our economy in the short term. i think what consumers are doing, and can that's what's frustrating to them about

washington, is what all sensible people do. let's prioritize our investments. let's save what we can save, and let's prioritize our investments and really focus on the things that are important instead of just spending willy-nilly. the housing market continues to be a huge problem. and, ultimately, i think, until we get the political will to actually reform fannie and freddie and get this housing market back on its feet, consumers are going to continue to be nervous because so much of their wealth is tied up in their home. jenna: you know, we tend to say that savings on a family level is good although as you mentioned the repercussions in the economy not so good. businesses really get criticized for keeping the money on the sidelines and not putting it back into the economy. >> that's right. jenna: i'm curious on your thoughts on this. the president this morning had a meeting with the executive committee of the afl-cio which is a major labor group, union federation out this.

and not getting necessarily into the union side of it, but if you were a part of that meeting, what would be your suggestion to to the president on this point of how to get businesses back into spending money again, putting it back into the american economy? >> this first thing that i -- the first thing that i believe the president and washington need to focus on is reforming the tax code. perhaps reforming the tax code could be part of this next step in the debt negotiations, but our tax code is much too complicated, it isn't competitive. that would help small business, it would help big business, and as part of that reform we could encourage companies to bring cash back home. we're the only country in the world that taxes overseas profits in the way that we do. our tax rate is uncompetitive, and yet a lot of big companies don't pay their fair share because there's so many loopholes. so let's reform the tax code, lower the rates, simplify it and close all those loopholes. the second thing i would recommend is everything has to

be thought of in terms of small businesses. big companies are doing okay because they can access overseas markets. but small businesses depend on the american consumer. and every time we add a new regulation or a regulatory agency like nlrb or the epa puts forward something it effects small businesses. let's start peeling away those regulations to help these small businesses. jenna: it seems like that's the focus moving ahead. real quickly, what's next for you, carly? you getting back into politics? enter well, you know, i have taken on a role as the vice chairman of the republican committee, i believe we need to regain the republican majority in the senate. think how different these qoarks negotiations over the last several weeks in washington would have been had republicans been in the majority. jenna: well, actions speak louder than words, so we can only speculate, but we'll see what happens as we go closer to 2012. carly, nice to have you. thank you again for your

insights today. >> thank you for having me, jenna. great to be with you. jon: heavy rains bring dangerous flash floods to many parts of the country. in southern utah people are up to their knees in water clearing out household items floating now in garages and basements. major concern as michigan issues more flood warnings. many homes in that state still submerged from are the last round of flooding. you throw this some triple-digit heat warnings, and it is looking like a terrible weather day for many americans.olina is here wi. >> reporter: hi, jon, that's right. terrible weather across many areas of the country. today we're looking at highs again in the triple digits. kansas city, 105, 108 in if dallas. many of these high temperatures will be near or exceeding record levels for today, so this is very hot out here all because of a big high pressure system that's continuing to produce these hot temperatures across the central and southern portions of the u.s.

so, again, we have these excessive heat warnings because of how hot it is out there. factor in a little bit of humidity, and you're talking about heat index values that could be reaching 115 degrees in some of these areas and further eastbound into tennessee valley and portions of georgia and alabama. so we're talking about over 15 states today under some kind of heat advisory. one city in particular we've been talking a lot about because they've been seeing consecutive days over and over of 100-degree temperatures is dallas, texas. currently 31 days in a row at 100 degrees or more, that's the second largest streak they've had so so so far. and if you take a look at the forecast, more 100-degree temperatures and sunshine and just no rain. you mentioned those showers and thunderstorms that were producing flooding in utah, that's basically because they move around the area of high pressure across the four corners and severe weather across

portions of the great lakes and new england. jon: all right, maria, thank you. jenna: well, the administration moving to strike down alabama's new immigration law. what's in the law that's prompting such a drastic response? judge napolitano is up next. plus, 15 years ago domestic terrorists set off a devastating fertilizer bomb in oklahoma city. what's now being done to prevent that from happening again. [ man ] they said i couldn't win a fight. but i did. they said i couldn't fight above my weight class. but i did. they said i couldn't get elected to congress. but i did. ♪ smetimes when we touch ha ha! millions of hits! [ male announc ] flick, stack, and move between active apps seamlessly. only on the new hp touchpad with webos.

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jon: the obama administration is suing, now, the state of alabama over its tough new immigration law. it makes it a crime to be in the state of alabama without documentation. now, the justice department says it's the federal government's job to set immigration policy and not that of the states. our fox senior judicial analyst, judge andrew napolitano, joins us now. this is the same thing the justice department said to arizona, essentially. >> it is. and the statutes are comparable. basically, making it a state crime for a person to be in the

state living there and working there without documentation because the state government is of the view that the federal government is not enforcing federal law, a view that most people would take. nevertheless, the justice department is emboldened, jon, because the federal courts in arizona didn't invalidate the law, but they prevented the state of arizona from enforcing it. so they expect the same thing to happen in alabama. jon: but isn't there a message to the federal government if you've got not just one border state, but a state that's a long way from the southern border saying, hey, you're letting too many illegal immigrants into the country. >> yes, there is a message. but let me tell you the way judges interpret that message. it's like this: the constitution says the federal government is in charge of immigration, not the state governments. and if federal government is not doing its job, it's the job of the people to change the federal government which would mean vote the president out of office. not a practical thing to do, not an easy thing to do.

we generally only do it once every four years or once every eight years. but judges don't like to see what we call jurisdiction shift, that is jurisdiction from the federal government changed to the state government. jon: but, again, i come back to the argument that these states are making which is if the federal government isn't going to enforce the law, who's supposed to? >> the federal government is not enforcing the law, and one can certainly understand the frustration of the states. but the courts will basically say we can't change what the constitution has said which is that the federal government is in charge of immigration. get yourself a president who's willing to enforce the federal law. jon: so you think this will be upheld? >> i do, i think that it will be interfered with. i think the federal courts will do the same thing to the alabama law they did to the arizona law, and that will heighten the frustration that people have about a federal administration unwilling to do its job. jon: look to see more states doing the same kind of thing, that's my prediction. >> i think you're right. jon: judge napolitano, thank

you. >> pleasure. jon: tune in to the fox business network, 8 p.m. eastern time. he hosts "freedom watch," and then it's on again at 11 p.m. jenna: well, a surprising approach to a gloomy housing market. how about demolition? why banks are turning to bulldozers rather than homeowners in this foreclosure crisis. also, chilling new details after a baseball fan is beaten nearly to death. why cops now say he wasn't the only victim that day. i love that my daughter's part fish.

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jenna: well, listen to this. bringing the housing market back to life with a bulldozer? more and more banks are now demolishing foreclosed homes. local governments get the free land, banks might get a tax break for the donation. why is this happening? what does this tell us? joining us now host of a whole

bunch of shows as we tease ahead to then, david -- [laughter] why is this happening? >> reporter: well, we all remember when detroit, houses in the detroit were literally being sold for a dollar each, and now they can't even give houses away because a lot of these banks are holding properties that are costing them more than they're worth. they're costing them more in terms of taxes, in terms of upkeep. a lot of these places that are in neighborhoods that aren't so good, so they have to be guarded by private security guards. so the banks figure, hey, we might as well just get these properties off the books, maybe we can even get a tax deduction if we give them to the communities in which they are based. and very often those communities will bulldoze these properties to the ground and use them as public parks or space -- jenna: okay. so there's two sides. >> reporter: it's nuts. it's nuts. jenna: but we've been talking about for a long time getting the supply out of the market. there's too many homes out will to catch up.

so in the long run, david, is there any redeeming value to this even though it sounds strange? >> reporter: i don't think so. and can we shouldn't blow it out of perspective. out of 1.7 million homes in foreclosure or about to be in foreclosure, we're talking about several thousand. i mean, we have jpmorgan which has 800 homes that they're donating, wells fargo has a couple of thousand. so in the grand scheme of things it's not a lot, but it just shows you how distorted the housing market is. houses were meant as shelter for people, not as places to be bulldozed to the ground. the whole thing became distorted when the government sort of blew up the housing market into a distorted kind of subsidized bubble is what they did. they did that with cheap credit, the federal reserve providing cheap credit for too long, and they did it with housing programs subsidized by fannie mae and freddie mac. all of these programs created the housing bubble that we are still trying to destroy right now. jenna: well, if you're a homeowner, you're listening to

thosebacks thinking they're the one -- banks thinking they're the ones that got the bailout money. and someone might bulldoze it rather than working with me to keep me in be my home. >> reporter: once again, they're getting subsidized by the government. again, these are the big banks. usually the smaller banks, the ones that are holding these properties and depending on these properties to eventually turn a profit for them, they're not bulldozing. it's the big banks that have hundreds of thousands of homes that are doing this. but, again, the bottom line is the housing market became distorted because the government subsidized it to too great a dee. jenna: well, we'll see if that distortion can get back in line hopefully sometime soon. >> reporter: well, the government's still in the business, still trying to keep prices from falling which is the only way to clear the market. jenna: something i'm sure you'll be talking about. here's all of david's shows. "bulls and bears "on the fox business network, and then you also have "america's nightly scoreboard", 9 p.m. on the fox business network. you're busy.

>> reporter: thank you very much for all those plugs. appreciate it, jenna. jon: he gets paid by the hour, that's why. [laughter] the debt showdown is coming to an end. we are live on capitol hill where the senate is now just minutes away from a final vote on this debt deal. live coverage. plus, in the-depth analysis of what the deal means for the u.s. economy and for your wallet. all of that ahead. also, a hard landing for the faa. the agency is out of money and furloughing thousands of it workers. so how long will america's eyes in the sky stay grounded? we'll take a live look at that story.

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jenna: a fox news alert as we approach high noon here on the east coast and down in washington. a final deal to raise the debt ceiling and start cutting some spending now moments away from a final vote in the u.s. senate. a white house statement from president obama also coming up in the about, we imagine, about 15 minutes. it's going to be a busy hour,

everybody. we're glad you're with us. jon: how long have we been talking about this? jenna: for a while now. and i think we're going to be talking about it for much, much longer, jon. jon: there's mitch mcconnell, the minority leader in the u.s. senate. this thing has been a long time in coming, and now we are 12 hours, less than 12 hours away from the final deadline. take a live look at the senate floor, voting about to get under way. 60 votes needed to pass this bill. senate sources are telling us the measure is likely to get far more than that. mike emanuel is our chief congressional correspondent. he is live on capitol hill for us now. mike? >> reporter: well, jon, we just heard senator mcconnell say during your commercial break that this is changing the way washington operates, this deal. for years and years, presidents of both parties when they wanted to raise the debt ceiling, congress has authorized it. this changes the way the operation goes from this point forward, essentially, saying that if you're going to raise the debt ceiling in the future, there will be cuts attached to

it. and so senator mcconnell celebrating that. we've heard a lot of pluses and minuses about this piece of legislation, a lot of lukewarm support. some will tell you that that is because it is the product of bipartisan compromise, but all indications -- excuse me -- all indications are they will have the 60-plus votes to pass this through the senate to president obama to avoid this default possibility for the country. and then we move on to the next fight. jon? jon: mike emanuel keeping an eye on things live there on capitol hill. what a day. thanks, mike. jenna: we'll be back, of course, as news develops. as mike was just mentioning, these are some of the final speeches before the vote actually takes place which we expect any moment. one of the things we've talked a lot about is the detours this deal has taken to get to this point leaving bruises on just about everyone involved. as we wait for the president to make a statement in the rose garden just a few minutes after the final vote -- that's what we

expect be -- we are lucky enough to have bret baier back with us who anchors "special report "and broke a whole bunch of news yesterday on our show. this is a conclusion of some sort, at least for this bill, and it's passed with bipartisan support in the house. are there any lingering questions at all about its fate in the senate? >> reporter: no, jenna. it's going to pass. the question is, really, the only lingering question is by how many. they need 60 votes for this, this cloture vote. that's, essentially, the vote that we're watching. they could get as many as 70, but remember, this is also a situation that once they cross the threshold and they have the 60 and the, it's still open, there will be some senators perhaps who are up for re-election perhaps who are thinking about their next election who may change their vote and say, listen, if it's okay with you, leader, i've got, you've got the votes you need, i'm going to go from a yes to a no. we saw that yesterday, it might

happen again. senator mcconnell just on the floor right now live as mike mentioned. in this speech he said among ore things this, quote, it might have appeared to some that their government was not working but, in fact, the opposite was true. their argument on the republican side has been that this is changing the conversation, this is changing the way washington works. now, in the big picture in all of the things that the government has to deal with and a $14.5 trillion debt, this is a small deal in that perspective. but it is a big change in the way things have operated in the past. jenna: important to point out that symbolism, at least that is what the politicians are talking about. but the effect on the average american family, bret, is there any immediate effect? when this gets signed into law as we expect it to happen, what is the effect that the average american family might feel, and what are the effects maybe longer term that we can talk about today? >> reporter: yeah.

well, i mean, the biggest effect is that you avoid what the administration had set up as default. and the treasury department and the president coming out and saying all of the negative things that could happen beyond tuesday. that has two effects. one is everyone is looking to this deadline, and it sets up this cliff, and there's this battle back and forth that, obviously, we've covered very into the deep details of everything. but it also paralyzes some people. the kind of deer in the headlights. and there is a feeling that this is sort of a breath, an exhale for people to get about their business. that said, we have another standoff about a month and a half away now, the end of s. -- september is the end of funding for the u.s. government, what's called the continuing resolution. it's the end of the fiscal year. and we'll have another one of these battles. republicans are saying that this is one step at a time. they're going to go after this

battle after battle. democrats are saying this is no way to run a government, up against a cliff all the time. and they're going to try to turn the conversation to jobs and whatever the government can do to stimulate the economy quickly because that's the big situation. jenna: it is a major story for us this week as i'm sure you're talking a lot about, bret, we have a big jobs report friday, unemployment above 9% still. just your sense of it, bret, you know, based on what we've seen in the past couple weeks and the big decisions about the budget and a supercongress talking about some of these entitlement programs and what we're going to cut as far as further deficit reduction. has anything changed, has this been a game changer at all as far as the way that these two parties that are currently in if office right now are going to relate to each other? >> reporter: i mean, that's a great question, whether this has somehow changed, you know, this is a compromise deal. and there are things that both sides don't like about it, significant things they don't like about it.

many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are holding their noses as they vote yes for this compromise bill. that said, if anything, you've seen -- and the american people have seen -- how split the parties are on the big issues. so the big question is that supercommittee or whatever you want to call it, the joint committee, how that will operate. and most importantly, who will be on that committee. there was a report out that perhaps on the republican side that republicans who voted against this bill would not be eligible for the committee. which would mean that some of the most ardent conservatives who would stand up to tax increases arguably wouldn't be considered. i've talked to some sources up on the hill, they say that's not the case. the question now is many people don't want to be on the committee. we'll see who they put on. jenna: yeah. it'll be interesting to see how raises their hands. again, we're looking at the senate minority leader, mitch mcconnell. we expect the majority leader,

harry reid, to speak after him, then there would be a vote. bret, i don't know if you know this, is there any timing on these speeches? they can just have a free-for-all before the vote? >> reporter: true. you'll just hear from the leadership, mitch mcconnell and senator reid, and be it probably won't last too much longer. the vote we are into where they said the vote would start which would be 12 noon eastern. and soon after that we'll have a quorum call, and you'll see the clerk call all of the senators, and there'll be the vote. you may want to listen in here. this could be kind of a back and forth between the senate majority leader and the minority leader. jenna: let's go ahead, bret. >> while they witnessed a lot of political wrangling, they also saw congress make some historic, important decisions. and averted a default on our debt that's been so concerning to all of us for such a long period of time. our country was literally on the verge of a disaster.

it was on the brink of a disaster. one day left, we were able to get together and avert that disaster. now, this compromise that we've reached is not perfect, and i feel it's important disease mr. president, can we have order, please? >> senate will, please, come to order. we welcome all our visitors and want to make it clear that any disturbance or manifestation of approval or disapproval is prohibited under the senate rules. the majority leader may proceed. >> i appreciate the kind words that my counterpart, senator mcconnell, has stated on the floor. i've gotten to know him and speaker boehner a lot better this past month or two. especially the speaker. and even though i disagree vehemently with the direction the speaker's legislation took with no bipartisan support at all, it is not the product we

have here. the product we have here is one of compromise. the winners without trying to outline who the winners are, there's principally one winner true all of this, and it's the american people. we settled for less than we wanted, so did my friend, the leader of the republicans, settled for less than they wanted. but that's the way legislation works, that's the way compromise works. but i can't let go, um, without responding to my friend who boasted about, in his own way, about this, the new senators and the new members of congress who came here. i welcome them all, but a result of the tea party direction of this congress the last few month has been very, very disconcerting and very unfair to the american people. it stopped us from arriving at a conclusion much earlier, and we must go forward. and also, mr. president, i recognize we have to do more.

of course we need to do more, and that's why we have the joint committee set up that i'll talk about in just a minute. the american people are not impressed with the no new revenue. the vast majority of democrats, incompetents and re-- independents and republicans think this arrangement we've just done is unfair because the richest of the rich have contributed nothing to this. the burden of what has taken place is on the middle class, on the poor. my friend talks about no new taxes. mr. president, if their theory was right, these huge taxes that took place during the bush agent agent -- bush eight years, the economy should be thriving. these tax cuts have not helped the economy. the loss of eight million jobs during the bush eight years, two wars started unfunded, all borrowed money, these tax cuts all on borrowed money. if tax cuts were so good, the economy should be thriving.

if you go back to the prior eight years during president clinton's administration, 23 million new jobs were created. we had when president bush took office a surplus over ten years of $7 trillion. that has evaporated, and now we're talking about a $14 trillion debt. the compromise we reached is imperfect. and we're going to send legislation to the president today that will not only avert a default, but make significant deficit reductions. is that enough? i repeat, no, not enough. this legislation will provide our economy with stability it desperately needs and to assure congress that we will continue working, and i've said this yesterday, i say it again, i appreciate my friend, the republican leader, putting his arms around the idea that i came up with to have this joint committee. they work in decades past, there's no reason it can't work now.

no supermajority, each leader will appoint three, a committee of 12. we need to do something because the trigger that kicks in is very, very difficult. we need to do this. and it has to be one that's fair. the american people demand fairness. it can't be more cuts to programs that have made this country what it is. there must be a sharing of sacrifice. it's really unfair for billionaires and multimillionaires not to be contributing to the arrangement we've just made. but they're not. my friends, the republicans, held firm, and no revenue which is really too bad. we need to have a fair approach to this joint committee, and i'm confident we will do that. and the one reason we're going to do that is because of the trigger mechanism that kicks in. now, this committee that was going to have, be appointed, the

members i say here must have open minds. we've had too much talk the last few days of republicans as early as this morning, republican leaders in the senate saying there will be no revenue. that's not going to happen, otherwise the trigger is going to kick in. the only way we can arrive at a fair arrangement for the american people with this joint committee is to have equal sharing. it's going to be painful. each party, if they do the right thing, it's going to be painful for them because to be fair we have to move forward, there has to be equal spending cuts, there has to be some revenue that matches that. the legislation that's going to be sent to the president today ends a standoff that ground the work of washington to a halt this summer. of so congress must now return to its most important job, creating jobs. now, mr. president, there are things we can do to create jobs. we know that. we've passed out of here quickly

the patent bill. 270,000 jobs, we're told, that legislation will create. so we'll move to that the first time we get back after the summer break and move to the patent legislation. it's important we do that. there are other things we can do. there are things out there that should be bipart in nature that we can do. -- bipartisan in nature that we can do. we have a highway bill that's due. i've spoken to the chairman of the finance committee today, there are ways we can fund that that should be in keeping with the bipartisan approach to this. the important thing that we have, mr. president, with these infrastructure jobs we need so, so very much is that for every billion dollars we spend in infrastructure, we get 47,500 high-paying jobs. a lot of other jobs spin off from that. now, these aren't jobs that you have a billion dollars and you have all these jobs are jobs that the federal government does.

these are, these are monies that go to the private sector to build roads and bridges and dams. we need to do that, and we can do that. clean energy jobs. they're changing the face of this nation. we need to do that. i'm optimistic and hopeful that the spirit of compromise that has taken root in washington over the last several days will endure. i hope my republican colleagues will join forces with democrats to put america back to work and not be looking for winners and political parties, but let's start looking for winners with the american people. we've made progress toward cutting the goal. we made progress toward our goal of cutting the deficit spending that we have around here. this nation still faces a jobs deficit as well. there is no issue more important to the american people than job creation. until every american who chooses to work can find a job, our job is undone, so we're going to continue making jobs our number

one priority. we ask republicans to join with us in this regard. ad lie stephenson once called politics, quote, the people's business. the most important business there is. that's what adlai stevenson said. so, mr. president, it's time for congress to get back to doing the people's business, creating jobs. nothing is more important than that. mr. president, i ask the yeas and nays on my motion to concur. >> is there a sufficient second? there appears to be a sufficient second. jenna: senator reid wrapping up some comments before the vote on this debt deal. bret baier is still with us watching this from d.c. senator reid covered a lot of ground, whole bunch of topics there. what stands out to you? >> reporter: sure, a couple of thoughts about this and what the senator said. one is just a perspective. we are here at this moment because senator reid chose shot to increase the debt ceil -- chose not to increase the debt

ceiling when he had that request back in december of 2010. the democrats had the democratic senate, democratic house and, obviously, a democratic president. he said publicly back then that the reason he didn't want to do it then was because he wants republicans to buy in, to have some buy-in into the debt, and he wanted them to share the pain. so it was a political decision back then. that's just a perspective thing. what he was talking about there, it's also interesting to hear both the senate majority leader and the senate minority leader mention the tea party. and senator mcconnell said the senate minority leader said this agreement will slow down the big government freight train as senators are voting right now. he also said, quote, the only reason we're talking about passing legislation that reins in the size of washington instead of growing it is because the american people believed they could have a real impact on the direction of their government. he said, they spoke out, we heard them, and it's only through their continued participation in this process and lawmakers who are willing to listen to them that will

complete the work we've begun. if you ever had any doubt as these senators are voting on this compromise piece of legislation that the tea party had an impact not only in november 2010, but an impact in how the government is operating currently, this is the day in which you take that tout out of your -- doubt out of your mind. you have the two leaders in the senate both specifically mentioning the tea party, and obviously, from very different points of view. senator reid saying that it's, essentially, extremist and has held up the government and has pushed it up against this cliff of default is senate reid's thought -- senator reid's thought. but it is clearly having an impact in washington. jenna: interesting to have those two thoughts and then have senator reid finish with talking about the spirit of compromise. and as we just talked about, bret, whether or not that will don't or what form it will take is something we're going to be watching closely. bret, stand by. we're going to keep you with us.

again, watching this historic vote happening in the senate. jon: is well, and a lot of the speculation was that getting agreement on this debt situation was going to make wall street happy. not so happy right now, the dow down about 56 point bees. neil cavuto is on capitol hill keeping ab eye on all of this -- an eye on all of this. why are they not rejoicing, neil? >> reporter: because the economy is backfiring. that's it, we got another indication today that the economic numbers don't look good, personal income, personal spending, both less than thought, in fact, on the spending front consumers appear to have closed up their wallets, jon. so when i heard harry reid talking about we want to get back to jobs, that's very, very important, well, that is what people have been waiting to see, and that has not really materialized. we might see more evidence of that on friday when we get the full month of july jobs report, not expected to be good and following on the heels of some very weak economic news from factory orders to big companies

announcing some big layoffs. we've seen the likes of barclays, hsbc, we've seen merck and research in motion of blackberry fame announcing layoffs in the tens of thousands. in fact, this has been the biggest past week for layoff announcements in the close to two years. so some are looking at that as a sign we're slipping back into something bad, maybe very, very bad. and is so this theater notwithstanding, they're saying, look, and harry reid might be able to talk about wanting to get back to the people's business and that is jobs presumably with all the stimulus and spending they've had to spur those jobs, they've not had the desired results. jon: yeah. >> reporter: maybe the distraction of this debt debate was better than whatever approach they were taking. jon: i heard the senate majority leader just there say we know how to create jobs. well, if they know how to create jobs, why don't they wave the magic wand and create a few million of them? >> reporter: the bottom line and what gets to the gist of

this whole debt debate if you think about it is whatever attempts -- and i take nothing away from their efforts to create jobs -- they have not really worked. warped by net losses in the two and a half to three million range since this president took office. now, as he points out, as democrats like to point out, they inherited a mess. the argument now that's increasingly forming in many people's minds is they're making a bigger mess of things. how do we have this dilemma? how do we correct that? the reason for this measure today is maybe if we take more capital out to have government's hands and put it or allow it to be in private individuals and businesses' hands, that'll make a better go of it. that's what a lot of republican senators and many others have been advocated they want to see. of course, the devil's in the details, but the overall side to this is probably wanting at around $2.1 trillion over the next ten years, a lot of this is back loaded. but as many have argued, we came

in with just a promise and a push to raise the debt ceiling and address spending issues later. republicans are no doubt going to brag even though some of their tea party supporters are going to be bristling at this, this might not be your cup of tea, but we got two trillion plus more than we would have gotten had we not pushed these points. we'll see then what a difference that makes, taking that money out of government and presumably into private hands. but keep in mind we're still talking a lot of money in the government's hands, we're just slowing how much the increase will be in the years ahead. jon: yeah. a lot of republicans even though they are the minority party in the senate, they are saying look what we got? the president wanted a clean debt ceiling raised bill, and instead he got a bill that includes a vote on a balanced budget amendment, we got major spending cuts, that kind of thing. they are crowing victory, and as you say, they have some right to do so, i suppose.

>> reporter: at this point, certainly. and one thing also harry reid was saying, of course, each side plays their political points, republicans are no different, but at issue about the tax rates and whether under president bush they made a difference. since i'm the resident geek in this chief at fox and i coffer this stuff, people forget, john, that at the start of the bush administration we were going into a recession. we know that it predated him by a quarter, some say two quarters, and we do know at that time that the nasdaq was literally imploding down from a high of 5,000 to half that in short order. so all that money that was coming from wall street was just disappearing away. many argue and many have since conducted studies to this effect that had we not gotten the audiotape of and the stimulus from those tax cuts then, the recession certainly would have been far worse. people also forget that we had this little event called nerve that disrupted things, i think,

fairly violently. i only say this because it's who caused what and when, and i know president bush is the lift that keeps -- gift that keeps giving, but i do want to remind people of the nasdaq implosion that was in full steam, full swing and what these tax cuts did at the time. i also hasten to add that when ronald reagan had aggressively cut taxes in the early '80s, that created an even bigger boom. so to say and to associate a boom with a hike in be taxes on any individual group of whether high income or not with producing an economic boom is simply incorrect. jon: you mentioned the bush tax cuts, and i'm curious, you know, president obama acted like he was swallowing castor oil when he signed the bill that extended the bush tax cuts until 2013. are you making any predictions about whether those will be

retained after that point? >> reporter: well, obviously, the republicans would like to see them retained, and i think most democrats would like to see them on middle and lower income. bret could correct me, i don't know if he's still there, but i believe in this deal those cuts go away after 2012, and it's factored into the math here that whatever revenue you're getting or not getting from are them is factored in under the assumption that they all go away. now, we know that that's not going to happen, certainly not for everybody. so if that is not going to happen, then do you look up additional revenue? do you cut in additional areas? do you look at entitlements? i think, again, lost here is the fact that much of these cuts while they're to be commended for trying to get spending under control, let's not forget that a lot of them used by both republicans and democrats is at best specious. jenna: we'll let bret correct you if need be. he is standing by, neil. >> reporter: oh, boy. i was just going to trash him,

i'm glad. jon: who wants to correct the geek in chief? is. [laughter] >> i mean, how can you correct neil cavuto? he's the man. but i will, i will. jenna: uh-oh. >> this is based on current law. it is, it says that current law is that the tax cuts are going to expire. however, it's a separate piece of legislation. we are told it does not include the savings of that expiration, if that makes sense. so even though it says that current law says that these bush era tax cuts are going to expire, the savings is not counted as deficit reduction in this bill. there is a lot of back and forth about this, and it's one of the things that tripped up and a lot of people had to explain up on capitol hill that by signing on to this you were not then codifying, essentially, the expiration of the bush era tax cuts and the business extenders and the alternative minimum tax patch. so it's a separate deal. but it, it does bring up the

fact that there will be another battle over those tax hikes. i want to make one point that neil really brought to the center here is that remember back when we had the battle over the last shutdown, the last government shutdown, and president obama did sign the extension until 2013 of the bush era tax cuts across the board. at the time treasury secretary timothy geithner, this was right after the administration had launched recovery summer. you remember that in 2010. secretary geithner said it would be good policy to extend, to increase taxes on the top earners. he said that the economy could withstand that. those were with his words back then in august of 2010. as we get those gdp numbers from the past, from friday and the revision from the first quarter of 2011 from 1.9% to a .4% growth, there are a lot of people looking back at that

saying could the economy really have held that?

>> speaker boehner takes on a bigger stature going forward because of the deals that have yet, the battles that have yet to be fought. they are all characterizing this as the first step in turning the aircraft carrier around, if you will, that takes a while. and speaker boehner, i think, is running point. jenna: neil, what are your thoughts on that? speaker boehner, is there anyone else we should watch moving ahead? >> i'm trying to find a way to disagree with bret, but i really can't because he's so smart. but i will enter a new player here, if you guys don't mind, and that's someone we're not hearing from.

the guy who most of this hoped-for turn around is going to, and that's ben bernanke. he's already said i'm outta here. ii don't want to sound arcane here, but i think what he has been doing behind the scenes for the last couple years, it's over, and he's more or less saying, that's it, that's it. jenna: i'm getting an associated press alert. sufficient number of senators pass emergency bill to avoid u.s. default. i'm going to wait on a couple more headlines and make sure we can confirm that because, obviously, the counting goes on, and there can be errors like any other time, but that is the headline as it stands and, again, what this bill does is it avoids according to the administration a default on our debt. the question that remains ahead is the issue of our creditworthiness as a nation. and that still as we talked about lingering issues, bret mentioned a few of them. neil, this is still a lingering issue out there as far as where

the united states stands, as far as its creditworthiness, you mentioned ben bernanke. what are your thoughts on that issue? >> well, i didn't want to be interrupted by the vote, but i did say and that's what i was trying to get at here was the pressure's going to be on ben bernanke if they can't get jobs in washington to continue on debt issues and the like, then the issue is what can he do to sport of keep -- sort of keep this economy, whatever you want to call it, limping along? what he has been doing in the past is buying up treasury notes and security, again, without getting too gobbledygookish here, that is kept to even lower than they otherwise would be and kept the buying instruments in play. now, he has said that is over with, that he's taking away the so-called quantitative easings and no longer in that game. we're hearing growing talk that he might be back in that became because at the very least the ratings agencies are going to look at what's been done here

and say, well, we commend the efforts. it wasn't up to what we wanted, and that is we wanted to see $4 trillion in savings over ten years, and by the latest cbo math this works out to be maybe $2.1 trillion. commendable, but not what we asked for. i think it would be very hard for a u.s. rating agency to pull the trigger. they'll have folks going after them with pitchforks. but they did lock themselves into a corner, and much really at our behest, politicians saying you didn't see the last debacle, you'd better be on tom top of the next one, so we might push them into the corner of downgrading our securities. so that would put heightened pressure on ben bernanke to rise to the occasion. so the one player who's not here is the one who could matter more than anyone else here. we'll have to just see. >> that's a great point. >> oh, now it's a great point. >> >> i want to governor you props because -- give you props

because -- jenna: we have to separate the two of you really. i mean, this is too much. bret, go ahead. >> the biggest question really is about if there's going to be a quantitative easing three, the pumping of billions of dollars into the economy. we saw one, we saw two, and whether the fed does a qe3, that is a big question mark in washington. if president had his way, he would be pushing for more stimulus spending. and you heard senator reid saying that's what's behind those remarks. the president said in the news conference we want to get this off the table so we can be talking about new programs. those were his words. he would like to see a refocus on stimulus from the government, and the question is what the federal reserve does and what the government tries to do even though there is absolutely no political appetite for any kind of more stimulus spending. jenna: it'll be interesting to see how that comes up and what form it takes as both of you mentioned.

quantitative easing is a fancy word for add liquidity to the system, and you can think about it like oil to an engine. if you put too much in, some feel like it gunks it up. might be the easiest way to think about it as we move into an uncertain time, jon, about what really is next for the economy and also uncertain politically as we move forward to the 2012 elections. jon: yeah. what are the political implications of this vote today? let's bring in somebody who pays close attention to that. you probably recognize a.b. stoddard, associate editor for "the hill," also a frequent guest of bret baier on "special report." i've been trying to figure out, a.b., especially among senators, i mean, the house faces election, every member of the house faces re-election every two years. senators have a little more cushion which may be why senator harry reid, the majority leader, who really barely squeaked by a tea party-backed challenger now feels, i guess, free to disparage the tea party in

remarks from the well of the senate like he just did. but what do you think is going to be the effect on those senators who are facing re-election in 2012? the are they going to be -- are they going to be worried about tea party backlash on their vote today? >> oh, absolutely. and the comments from the senate majority leader, harry reid, really illustrate his frustration with the fact that the tea party-backed freshmen in the house combined with some very, you know, veteran members who are just fiscal hawks joined together to create a bloc of more than 100 votes that really had all the leverage. so that is frustrating to president obama and to the democratic leaders in the house and to harry reid in the senate. but in trying to get the votes together for this deal, the senate minority leader, mitch mcconnell, and senate majority leader harry reid knew they were going to have to let some very liberal democrats protest. but it won't be a lot of them. and they knew of the more than

23 democrats up for re-election in 2012, many of them would be voting for this deal because they want, they're going to, you know, face some serious unrest from independents if they don't. and then they know that over on the republican side they knew that many conservative senators would say this just doesn't go far enough, and they would have to bolt. so both leaders knew going into this vote they were going to have to let some protesters off the hook and that they would, obviously, it would still pass. but they respect that the tea party has driven this narrative, and it's going to drive the debates -- excuse me, the votes on the senate and house side where many people are up for re-election next year. jon: yeah. we took a look at those senate candidates who are up for re-election, there are 25 of them in the u.s. senate. we took a look at what they have said about the votes so far or what they are inclined to do, this based on a listing we found in the cook political report. 25 of them up for election, we

got at least 14 who have said they are going to vote yes on this deal, among them dianne feinstein. you can bet that dianne feinstein isn't particularly worried about tea party backlash. but people like scott brown in massachusetts, he has said or at least he is expected to vote yes. i guess the question is does the tea party like this deal? >> no, the tea party doesn't. and that is why you see someone like senator orrin hatch of utah who you mentioned, you know, like all the senators only serves a six-year term, is only up for re-election every six years. he wasn't a tea party conservative six years ago, but now he's turned into one because he's getting challenged from the right. and the club for growth is going after him in utah. they're backing the house candidate, jason chaffetz, and he is running the race of his life. so even though he decided to vote no today because it's not good enough for the tea party, he's still not going to get their support. it's not going to work for him in utah. you see, that's why you see

senator jim demint of south carolina, senator rand paul of kentucky, the tea party conservative republicans in the senate saying, no, this doesn't go far enough. jon: yeah. there are four members of the house, four republican members of the house who are expected to challenge for the senate. we took a look at their votes as well, and all four of them, all four house members including jason chaffetz who you mentioned just a moment ago, all four of them expected to run for the senate next time around and all four voted no on this thing. clearly, tea party bash lack is front and center in their -- backlash is front and center in their minds. >> that's right. and they know they can get challenged in their primaries by people who are, you know, more pure, more conservative and who will reject -- also people who don't have a vote in the house of representatives and aren't under pressure to avert default but who can say this wasn't perfect. and obviously, you know, the bill wasn't perfect for liberal democrats either, but you saw bipartisan propoise in --

compromise come together. this had to pass the day before the deadline because the alternative was worse. but there are, you know, john boehner, the house speaker, got a very good number of his, a strong majority of his conference and actually a strong majority of the house tea party-backed freshmen to come onboard and vote for this. but they always knew they would lose people not only because it didn't address the structure of our long-term debt, dealing with the cost of spite element programs -- entitlement programs, but also because defense cuts turned off conservatives as well. jon: a.b., as you've been speaking the votes came through, and the senate has passed that 60-vote margin that it needed to get this thing done. jenna lee? jenna: we are going to continue to watch anything that happens that in the senate. as jon mentioned t-bill has passed. and we also are awaiting the president. ed henry is there, he's our chief correspondent there at the white house. ed, certainly a lot of action today.

we expect some comments from the president. what are you waiting and watching for? is. >> reporter: well, i think a lot of relief here at the white house, obviously, jenna. they just 48, 72 hours ago weren't sure whether this was all going to turn out. but it's not a victory celebration. i think you saw very restrained speeches in the senate, you're probably going to see that from the president as well because they realize they came to the edge of default, number one. number two, it's a pretty messy process. i'm not sure either party looked good here. and also if you think about it, this president's position in this whole debate has evolved. he started out a new months ago saying he didn't want spending cuts tied to this debt ceiling increase at all. he, obviously, had to give on that, also the tax issue. you'll remember last monday night he framed this as he wanted a balanced approach which meant spending cuts and also maybe some taxes on the table. those have been taken off in the first stage which has frustrated liberals while you saw anger in

the house yesterday even as it passed. i think what the president is going to try to do is, number one, try to tell his base, look, in round two when this superpanel, supercommittee on the hill meets, he believes taxes will be on the table. and secondly, i think the president here is going to try the pivot to the economy, jobs. you heard senate majority leader harry reid pointing out he believes there's also a jobs deficit in this country, and the president and the congress, both parties are going to have to do more on this. as bret baier was pointing out, this deal shows us if nothing else, no money to stimulate the economy anymore. the president had his bite of that apple early on. republicans felt it was far too much money and be hasn't worked out. the president would certainly disagree with that, but unemployment's still stubbornly high, and you do have this jobs deficit and yet no real federal money to put a dent in it right now, jenna. jenna: not only about the money, just political appetite from both sides on that might be a question that we could talk about in the coming weeks ahead. we just saw an aide look like he

was arranging some notes there for the president. again, the president's first comment after we see this bill, this debt deal passing in the senate. ed, this is a big question, but what is next as far as what's next for the administration and what's next for congress? what should we expect in the weeks ahead? >> when you talk to top aides here, what they think is next is to get back to jobs and the economy as i mentioned, there's some pending trade deals up on capitol hill, they hope after the august recess they're going to take some of those up. the president is looking to extend a payroll tax cut that's going to be expiring. but none of those things would be expect today proside some before provide some big jolt to the economy in the fall. there's a political impact for this president as well as lawmakers in both parties who are going to be up for election next year. if unemployment is still well over 9%, this president likely to pay a price for that. republicans didn't come out too

great in this debate either. they certainly seemed to get the upper hand on the spending cuts, and the tea party is certainly happy with that. but on the other hand as this thing dragged on, you could see potentially a lot of independent voters saying this was such a messy process that everybody in washington they're pretty fed up with right now, jenna. jenna: you talk about political costs. again, a big topic ahead. ed, we talked over the weekend, i know you've been working nonstop really over the last two weeks on this. longer, actually, ed. i asked you in this weekend, and i'd like your thoughts on it since you're there. is the feeling in the air a sense of relief? is the feeling just exhaustion? what should we take away from this as the voters that put these folks, all of them, in the office? >> reporter: well, i think it's a combination. exhaustion, for sure. there was a top white house aide who was noting on saturday night as he came back to the white house to do some more work as it still looked like this was touch and go, this person noticed the motorcade of vice president

biden returning to the white house at 10:30 on saturday night. so right on up to the vice president and president, they've been working around the clock along with the rest of us. but same for the republican lawmakers on the hill. i think relief is the big word because we came so close to a default here, the country did, that i think both parties sort of pushed this far enough that they're just glad here, the president on down, that this is over. but i think you're certainly going to try to hear from the president in an attempt to try to win the debate moving forward. there's going to be a vigorous debate on both sides about who got the better of this deal. also, i think more important positioning in terms of this supercommittee of congress. as i said, the president is trying to say, look, taxes will be on the table, trying to mollify the left and saying, look, we didn't get taxes on the table this time, but in the fall and winter they will be. you have republicans saying, no, no, no, with unemployment over 9%, there's no way tax increases or even eliminating some tax subsidies, maybe they should not

be on the table at a time of economic uncertainty. and let's not remember that while a trillion dollars in spending cuts are up front here in this package that's just getting through the senate, they're promising some big promises. 1.5 trillion at least more in many spending cuts, and big cuts. programs like medicare are going to be on the table, and that is going to have a dramatic impact on our viewers. so while they avoided default, there's still going to be impact. jenna: ed is going to stay with us. jon, we were just talking about earlier here, here we are august 2nd, we've been talking about this day for so long coming. this is the deadline day for default, but it's not the deadline day to finish or the conclusion of talking about some of these big issues that continue to haunt washington and really the rest of the country. jon: i had to laugh when ed said they're going to be glad at the white house when this deal is done. how glad are we going to be when we don't have to talk about the debt ceiling anymore?

jenna: we can't forget the jobs report is also a piece of this, and that can easily spook the market. jon: we get so many e-mails and that chats from from our viewers who say, you know, enough about the debt ceiling, i need a job. bret baier is keeping an eye on all of this. i guess the senate tally is finalized or pretty close to it now? >> reporter: that's right. the final vote, 74-26. seven democrats voted no, 19 republicans voted no. that's a big, big tally, 74-26. bernie sanders, not a surprise. kirsten gillibrand, senator harkin from iowa, senator lautenberg and ben nelson who, you mentioned, is up for re-election in nebraska. of -- so there you have the breakdown. that's a significant vote. there were some thought that it wouldn't get over 70, and it's

74-26. now it heads right to the white moving -- compromise and moving forward and probably about jobs. we should point out that the treasury secretary sent, set this as the de235u89 day. -- default day. there was a lot of back and forth about whether that, in fact, was the day and whether the treasury secretary paid bills. so we should point out that throughout all of this there was questions about that, but there were no questions that if you miss this day, something probably would have happened on the economy front that could have been devastating to a very weak and fragile economy that we have currently. jon: weak and getting weaker, or so some of today's numbers would seem. bret baier, thanks. jenna: awaiting the president, here we have the wrap-up of the vote. mike emanuel is standing by in the halls of congress there, mike, where it's been extraordinarily busy over the last couple days. now we're in august.

now this vote is done. do these guys go on vacation? what exactly is next for congress here? >> reporter: you get a sense, jenna, after this prolonged fight over the national debt that a lot of members both in the house and senate and their staffs are very much looking forward to the traditional august recess where some will take some vacations, some will be back in their home states or districts hearing from their constituents, perhaps getting an earful from their constituents about whether this didn't go far enough or perhaps a thank you from constituents saying thank you from preventing a default. we've heard a lot of kind of lukewarm support for this bill. in the end after it passed the house by a wide margin last night, a lot of senators said, you know, it's a good first step in terms of going after our debt problem in this country, but it is certainly not comprehensive deficit reduction that will be in effect for, you know, many years to come and tackle this massive problem that this country has. you get a sense that this is

really changing an era in washington. for so long it's been about, you know, what new programs can we develop, what can we invest our money in as a government from this point forward, you really get a sense the fight's going to be over how do we get a handle on debt. and a lot of people saying this is, essentially, a good first step but only the first step on a probe longed fight over spending and the size of government moving forward. jenna: stand by for a moment as we take a look at the rose guard withen there, awaiting the president. i want to point this out to you as well, the dow is down 150 points. if it finish down, that would be the eighth straight day in a row, and that would be the longest series of losses in the market for three years. three years ago we were in the fall of, really, the financial crisis as it hit full tilt, and that's just an important thing to keep in the mind here. we've seen over the last couple days what investors call a

flight to safety. that means they take money out of stocks or the riskier investments and try to find a safer place to put it, simple as that. while some might speculate about how this debt deal might affect the market, what neil cavuto just pointed out is there has been a series of weak economic reports that have given investors something to think about it. europe you know, usually a summer friday it's lighter traffic at work, and you're not totally honed in. we hate to admit that, but that's normally the way the markets trend during the summer. lighter volume, less people trading, and sometimes the news doesn't take as hard an effect. but we've seen the opposite over the last couple of days, investors really taking this information to heart, and that gives additional context to what we're see anything washington and the way forward. if markets close today lower, that would be the lowest series or the longest series of low close since, really, the full tilt of the financial crisis.

jon: and we're down under 12,000 now. jenna: also an important psychological level. jon: yeah. that's been a long time. jenna: well, there's so many parts of this market that are school as well as just number crunching, and that 12,000 point as jon points out is very critical to which way some investors think the market is going. you have information on consumer spending and consumer wages, consumer income. and, basically, what it showed is that the american consumer, well, didn't spend a lot last month. what was significant about that is for the last two years our spending has been okay. we've seen that we've continued some spending albeit light through this crisis, but now this is the lowest month we've seen for consumer spending, in drop in about two years. and, again, that's important be. just earlier this week as far as our manufacturing read, how is the manufacturing sector doing, the factories in this country? we saw the lowest readings there in go years as well. so that's causing some pause here for the politicians.

all lawmakers really. bret baier is standing by with a us as well, bret and, obviously, this economic news still very much on the forefront of everyone's mind as we move ahead. we can't forget that there's an election next year. >> reporter: sure. and we have a debate next week in ames, iowa. thursday, august 11th, a republican debate on fox which will be the next big event ahead of the iowa straw poll on saturday or the andth. the 13th. so it will all factor in this, and there will be a lot of talk about domestic policy and the economy and all of this and the debate and how the presidential candidates have weighed in to this whole thing. obviously, congresswoman michele bachmann has been firm in her stance that she would not vote to raise the debt ceiling. mitt romney was against this deal, but others supported it, like jon huntsman. just some specifics about what's happening now, this compromise

bill now that it has passed the house, it has passed the senate, it will be signed by the president pro tem and the speaker. it will be physically signed. and then it will physically make its way down pennsylvania avenue to the white house, and we're told by the white house staff that the president will sign it as soon as it arrives to the white house. it's just kind of the logistics of how this all happens. but it is formal, and there is a process, and can it's going on right now. jenna: the play-by-play, bret, better than any sports anchor i know and pretty good for a political one as well. we'll see you at 6 p.m., of course, with "special report." thank you for joining us for the past hour, and we look forward to hearing from bret throughout the day as coverage continues on fox news. so many different pieces to watch, jon. jon: you see that podium at the white house rose garden. the president is going to be walking out there any minute now, perhaps, to make some kind of a statement to the nation. but the pageantry or lack

thereof speaks volumes about all of this. our chief white house correspondent ed henry is standing by. ed, normally if there's a bill to be signed that the president loves, you see him in the east room, he brings in hundreds of guests and television cameras and so forth. are they going to do that for this particular bill? >> reporter: no, we're not expecting it, and i think you make a great point, jon. normally you'd have almost cheerleaders behind the president. i think there's a number of things at work. number one, as i mentioned a moment ago, this is a pretty messy process, and i'm not sure the president or republican leaders want to be patting themselves on the back and say, boy, we did a heck of a job here. in fact, secondly, as bret was laying out, timothy geithner's been warning for months now that some cataclysmic events could unfold for the american economy which, as we all know, is already deeply, deeply strained, and they laid out a set of processes behind the scenes to prepare for that if this legislation didn't pass today.

and, in fact, our own peter barnes from the fox business network just ran into gene sperling, one of the president's top economic aides elsewhere here on the white house campus and sends this note that when asked his reaction to the senate vote, gene sperling said, quote, better than the alternative. i think that speaks volumes. he's not saying, you know, yippee, we've got a great thing here. he's saying the alternative would have been default, maybe an economic catastrophe. and so i think we'll see a pretty sober president of the united states not doing a cheerleading session here because he realizes also there's some tough work to do ahead to finish this job on deficit reduction. this is really just a tiny drop in the bucket, frankly, when you look at how many trillions of dollars of debt we are in right now. and finally just on twitter, dan pfeiffer, the president's communications director, just sent out a tweet saying as soon as the senate goes through the processes of getting that legislation that they just passed by an overwhelming margin, the president's going to sign it into law. so as you suggested, they'll

hold the bill -- no hold the bill for a couple of hours, he's going to sign this just as soon as he gets it to make sure this default doesn't happen, jon. jon: yeah. and i guess that will keep the treasury secretary printing all the checks and all the senior citizens and armed services personnel and everybody else are counting on, right? >> reporter: absolutely. va benefits, military personnel who are serving all around the world for the united states right now and also social security, a lot of our viewers have been nervous about that exactly as they hear the rhetoric flying around here in washington. so this could be a stabilizing moment, of course, but as we've also been talking about on the flip side the president in signing this deal into law is acknowledging that the federal coffers are empty right now. and so a president who came into office with a philosophy of, look, let's spend hundreds of billions on a stimulus bill to get this economy going again is now face with the the prospect

of finishing out his first term with no money in the federal kitty to prime the pump, if you will. so they're going to have to ride this out with well over 9% unemployment right now, a president wanting to do some thicks on the margins like -- things on the margins, but this deal is also a clear signal not just that they're trying to change how washington has been spending money, but there's going to be a change in how they deal with this economic recovery as well, jon. jon: again, the symbolism here is so interesting. you know, the rose garden often reserved forker ceremonies for heads of state and so forth. usually, you know, you have cabinet members lined up to shake the president's hand and congratulate him for, you know, a job well done on some piece of legislation. it looks like today, well, there's just the podium, and we understand, we are led to believe that the president is going to emerge from the white house, walk up to that podium alone, make a quick statement and then back back into the white house. >> reporter: yeah. we're not expecting him to take

any questions either. i mean, part of that may be that, you know, there are some tough questions to be asked, no doubt, about how all of this is going to be enforced. therethere are a lot of promisee in this deal, and as we noted, there's a trillion dollars in cuts up front. that's perhaps a good first step, but i think the republican leader in the senate, mitch mechanic connell, you heard him saying that washington is beginning to stop the runaway freight train of spending, but he stressed beginning to slow it down, i believe, was his phrase. not stopping it, halting it completely. there's still a lot more hard work to be done, and i think that's the signal this president wants to send by rolling up his sleeves, not having a pep rally, but figuring out how he's going to get the economy turned around. let's not forget that on friday sort of overshadowed, but those economic growth numbers came in the at only 1.3%. it was weaker than expected.

unemployment's still high as we've been noting. the housing crisis continues. so this president has a mountain of problems to deal with and not a lot of federal money to combat those issues, so he's going to have to go back to the drawing board, no doubt, jon. jon: ed henry. as we wait for the president to emerge and sign this piece of legislation that has been talked about, cussed and discussed for months on capitol hill, and finally it has passed both the house and the senate. the debt ceiling will be lifted, budget cuts will come about as a result of it, and they've finally gotten something done in washington whether you think it's a good thing or bad thing, up to you. jenna: continuing coverage on fox. shannon bream is joining us now. "america live" starts right now. shannon: and for those of you just joining us, the debt deal is sealed. the u.s. avoiding default, but our credit rating still uncertain. we're now awaiting president