chase what matters. ♪ is the perfect choice for holiday gatherings. martinelli's is non-alcoholic, festive like champagne, and tastes great! martinelli's: since 1868. on our broadcast here tonight, harsh reality. new jobs numbers tonight and they're dismal and the pain is broad and deep. secret flight by president obama to afghanistan. he showed up there this morning, saw the troops, but a big problem traveled with him. paradise lost. a gruesome turn of events in an american town that was supposed to be close to perfect. and "making a difference." he's a firefighter by trade, but his other role gives back just as much. "nightly news" begins now. captions paid for by nbc-universal television

good evening. this morning a reporter spotted something and thought it was strange that there was no marine guard standing guard at the door at the northwest portico of the white house, because there normally is when the president is in residence. then we learned he wasn't home. he was in fact landing in afghanistan. he made a secret overnight flight to visit the troops and meet with the president of that country. the problem for president obama, even while flying halfway around the world, he still could not escape some very bad news in the form of a very big number back home. today, we learned the unemployment rate has gone up, right on top of the holiday season. it's grown to 9.8% from 9.6%. bad economic news in an already bad economy. we have tonight asked both of our white house correspondents to join us. first, to the economy and nbc's savannah guthrie. savannah, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. this jobs report came out while the president was still in the air. there had been a lot of hope around here that we were finally

going to see a good jobs number. instead, this unemployment report was like a punch in the gut. with the president overseas, it fell to vice president joe biden to react to an unemployment report that caught the west wing and wall street by surprise. >> there is still no denying that the report is disappointing, because we were quite frankly hoping for an even stronger job growth. >> reporter: wall street was expecting the economy to add 150,000 jobs last month. instead, it added just 39,000. and despite strong retail sales, including a big black friday kickoff to the holiday shopping season, the retail sector lost 28,000 jobs, leaving some analysts to question whether the report could be trusted. >> the general tone of the economic data had been pointing up over the last four to eight weeks and this number stands in dark contrast to that other data. >> reporter: white house aides

argue the numbers only add urgency for the push to extend unemployment benefits and middle class tax relief. following the house's lead, senate democrats plan to hold symbolic votes tomorrow, to extend lower tax rates for middle class families only. but the measure will fail without the support of republicans who are holding out for tax relief for all taxpayers, including top earners. today, visibly frustrated democrats turned up the rhetoric. >> it's almost like the question do you negotiate with terrorists. >> reporter: but republicans said it was democrats wasting time. >> it is too risk question for all of our constituents to aim for partisan stunts. the clock is ticking. >> reporter: the president's bipartisan deficit commission came up three votes shy of the support needed to get its drastic budget cutting and revenue raising plan before congress. but the commission's leaders hoped they had given a push to lawmakers. >> please, i really am pleading

with you, please make the tough choices. >> reporter: one other economic note tonight, the u.s. and south korea have reached an agreement on that free trade agreement. this is the deal both countries had tried and failed to get in seoul, south korea last month, brian. >> savannah guthrie starting us off from the north lawn tonight. savannah, thanks. just a few hours after the unemployment numbers came out, as savannah mentioned, the president turned up in afghanistan. and chuck todd, on the white house lawn, has that part of the story. chuck, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. what made this trip doubly surprising is it happened today, a day of the jobs report, the day of the debt commission, and in the midst of this tax negotiation with a gridlocked congress, and all of it for a trip to afghanistan secretly done that was designed simply to boost troop morale. the president turned up in the dark of night at bagram airfield in afghanistan today. president obama was last seen at the white house hanukkah

reception last night at 6:44 p.m. >> happy hanukkah, everybody. >> reporter: just after 9:30 p.m., he snuck off for a 13-hour flight, landing at 11:00 this morning in afghanistan. on the ground for less than four hours, the president was briefed by his team, led by general david petraeus, and ambassador carl eikenberry. although high winds prevented the president from taking a helicopter to kabul for a planned face-to-face meeting with president karzai, the two did speak by phone. it was just two weeks ago, the two sat across the table from each other at the nato summit in portugal. but the central focus of this visit to afghanistan was to give a holiday morale boost to the troops. >> i want to make sure that i could spend a little time this holiday with the men and women of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known, and that's all of you. >> reporter: the president also discussed the mission. >> we said we were going to

break the taliban's momentum, and that's what you're doing. you're going on the offense. tired of playing defense. >> reporter: and he scored one easy applause line about their paycheck. >> you may have noticed during these tough budget times, i took the step of freezing pay for our federal workforce. but because of the service that you render, all who wear the uniform of the united states of america are exempt from that action. >> reporter: all dramatic theater on a day when the president faced a flurry of pressing issues at home, including rising unemployment a deadlocked debt commission, and a congress gridlocked over taxes. >> it's jarring for many americans on a day when the unemployment numbers are so high, to find the president going off to afghanistan on a trip that might as well have taken place closer to christmas. >> reporter: the president's abrupt departure left the vice president to deal with today's bad jobs news. >> i am not at bagram air force base, that's important.

>> reporter: while on the ground, brian, the president handed out personally five purple hearts, and by the way, this is december. there's going to be a big review supposedly of the afghanistan strategy. but a couple people close to the strategy review said to me a while ago the whole nato decision to put the deadline for troops of 2014 largely means this december review, there's not much to it. >> chuck, let's talk about secrecy for a second. you heard the vice president say i'm not at bagram. that was part of the feint. it was supposed to be him at first. secrets still can be kept. electronics are taken away, from the traveling reporters. they're told to tell no one, and the deal has been if the secret gets out, they're going to turn air force around and come home. >> reporter: that's right. it's been a practice due to war zones. any time you saw it with president bush and we've seen it continued with president obama, that the press corps does agree to these rules, the traveling press corps that does go with the president on these trips, brian. >> on this big day of economic

news domestically as we said. chuck todd, savannah guthrie, our two white house correspondents from the north lawn tonight. thanks to you both. now more on this jobs report. a closer look at what these weak november numbers mean. our friend diane swank is standing by, a chief economist with us from chicago tonight. diane, if i asked you to find good news in a bad number, could you? >> it would be hard, but there is some good news out there. the only good news is we're generating jobs. not enough jobs to accommodate those coming into the labor force let alone re-employ those who already lost their jobs for more than six months, most of them during the height of the crisis. there are some signs that those people who have just lost their jobs are finding jobs a little bit faster. that's i guess a sliver of hope out there. but we know that, of course, a lot of people have given up entirely on their job search. when they come back in, these unemployment numbers are go even higher. >> sadly to the bad news, first of all we're always told by

folks like you that seasonal employment, people getting jobs to work in say retail over christmastime usually deflates the unemployment number. now some people are fearing there's kind of a baked in permanently unemployed number in this country. >> that's the real concern, how many people have given up entirely. labor force participation people are willing to throw their hat in the ring and participation in the labor force has gone down dramatically during this recession. the longer they stay out, the harder they are to re-employ. >> diane swank with us tonight from chicago. diane, as always, thank you for your viewpoint. what does this next item tell you about unemployment and the jobs market in this country? delta airlines recently announced they would be hiring 1,000 flight attendants, and 100,000 people applied for those 1,000 jobs. and just about every american family and city and town has their own story of how rough it is out there.

our report tonight from chicago and nbc's kevin tibbles. >> reporter: the holiday spirit shines at chicago's german chris kindle market. but the decorations and ornaments mask real worry. >> it's all around us, our friends, our family. pretty much one out of two or three people we know are without a job right now. >> our family has cut back on gift giving. we pulled names this year instead of giving gifts to everybody. >> i don't think it's going to be a good christmas for them at all. >> reporter: for a lot of people? >> for a lot of people. >> at an orlando job fair, what are people looking for? >> anything at this point. i have no money coming in and a lot of money going out. >> reporter: a similar story at a job fair in los angeles. >> i'm just keeping my head up and hoping that i find something. >> just a lot of uncertainty in the american people right now, in both the people who are looking for jobs and those who want to hire people. >> reporter: delta survived the recession but is nervous about taking on new employees.

>> in order for delta to start hiring, we need to know where our taxes are going, where health care is going. >> reporter: but sensing eventual recovery, the world's largest retailer is planning to expand. >> in the next five years, we've committed to providing over 12,000 new jobs. >> reporter: still, as holiday shoppers pound the pavement, many remain uncertain about the future. when is the economy going to turn around? >> yeah, huh? if you knew that, crystal ball. >> reporter: while there are plenty of crystal balls with holiday scenes, none predict the cold reality many americans still face. kevin tibbles, nbc news, chicago. overseas, there's new trouble tonight for wikileaks. it's had to find a new address on the web, because two u.s. internet servers have dumped it and others are trying to do the same. meanwhile, in a web chat with readers of britain's guardian newspaper, the founder of wikileaks, julian assange, who

is wanted in sweden for alleged sex crimes, said "history will win, the world will be elevated to a better place. will we survive? that depends on you." as for the millions of online documents wikileaks has obtained, the camp surrounding julian assange says those secrets remain safely stored in his former military bunker in sweden. there is a new split in the debate over ending the u.s. military don't ask, don't tell policy. the heads of the army, air force and marines told congress today it would be a bad idea to let openly gay people serve, at least while americans are at war in afghanistan. that, as you may know, is at odds with the top pentagon brass. their bosses, who earlier this week said the time had come to let gays openly serve. when our broadcast continues on a friday night in just a moment, an ugly crime in a town that was supposed to be close to perfect. a florida town right out of a

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who are obese but not as heavy as the patients who currently have to meet the guidelines for receiving lap band surgery. now it's up to the full fda to accept or reject this recommendation. it was supposed to be the perfect hometown, back when disney decided to start a town. they even named it celebration. but now this picture perfect postcard town in florida is devastated and facing an ugly truth, a kind of paradise lost. our report from nbc's kerry sanders. >> reporter: celebration, florida. it was uncle walt disney's dream. >> i would love to be a part of building up a school of tomorrow. >> reporter: americans living the way people used to, houses with wide porches, where neighbors knew each other by their first names. a return to safe, small-town life. built 14 years ago, but what was to be norman rockwell's america, in the last week has turned into a picture that looks like many

other towns across america. this week, the town's first murder, followed by a 16-hour s.w.a.t. team standoff that had schools here in lockdown and residents cut off from their homes. >> it's devastation. celebration was built on a dream. >> reporter: deputies are telling the residents the standoff that ended in suicide and the unsolved murder are no reason for worry. >> celebration is very safe. last year they had reported three robberies in 2009, and only one robbery for this year. >> reporter: when it was first announced, demand to live here was so high, disney ran a lottery. bill and susan were among the first 400 winners. >> i think people came here thinking they were going to be living on main street usa and, you know, the pixie dust would be sprinkled and their life would be perfect. and they wanted the monorails to pick them up at their front door. this is real life, real mortgages, real jobs. >> reporter: long-time residents say they always feared this day would come.

it turns out you can wish upon a star, but dreams this grand rarely last forever. kerry sanders, nbc news, celebration, florida. when we come back here tonight, an update on a highway drama we left hanging on the broadcast here last night. t. hmm. hm? we're getting new medicare benefits from the new healthcare law. yeah, and most people will get free cancer screenings and 50 percent off of brand name prescription drugs if you're in the donut hole. [ chuckles ] you read my paper. i went to medicare.gov. it's open enrollment, you know. so i checked out all the options and found a better plan to fit my budget. well, you know what they say. oh! "knowledge is power." whew! [ male announcer ] visit medicare.gov or call 1-800-medicare. you won't believe your taste buds. you won't believe it's fiber. benefiber. clear, taste-free, and dissolves completely.

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when we left you last night, we left a drama in progress in way upstate new york near buffalo. drivers, truckers stuck in their vehicles 20 plus hours after a freak two-foot plus lake-effect snowfall. new york state police were using atvs to get to each vehicle and get drivers out or get them help while plows worked to open the interstate. finally, traffic is moving again, and tonight, highway authorities admit the huge backup never should have happened. while you can't stop it from snowing in buffalo, they are looking at more effective ways to keep cars and trucks off the road when it's being shut down by dangerous weather. we've been showing you the view on the ground in great britain this week where an early winter has hit hard. lots of snow.

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department of new york, leads the men on ladder 38 in the bronx. >> you take that little extra second to get yourself squared away. >> reporter: he also runs family and marriage counseling sessions. fowler began training as a therapist soon after he signed on as a firefighter in 1995. >> basically, i wanted to do a second career, have something lined up for after i retire. >> reporter: but he never thought he would be treating firefighters or their families. 9/11 changed all that. the burdens on the survivors included enormous family and marital strains. >> having an understanding of the culture. >> reporter: fowler joined a huge counseling team, helping the fdny and made a profound discovery. >> in the firehouse, i learned so much about relationships and what makes relationships work. i learned more there than i learned in my graduate program. >> i'm not sure if the average person realizes what a dangerous job being a firefighter is. >> reporter: margaret's son was a firefighter killed in the line of duty after 9/11.

she says fowler helped her cope in many ways. >> in any fire where you lose a firefighter, no one's fault but errors get made. and if you wanted to dwell on those things, you could drive yourself crazy. >> reporter: providing counseling for the family that makes up the fire department, naturally led to counseling other similar families, especially the police and the military. fowler has counseled returning iraq and afghanistan veterans and survivors of the ft. hood shootings. he says the key to saving relationships is helping those on active duty deal with their feelings. >> if you're going to be trained to shut off your emotions to do a great job, i think it's only fair to kind of train you to turn them back on. >> reporter: making a difference by serving on the front line and helping others who do. robert bazell, nbc news, new york. >> and that's our broadcast for this friday night and for this week. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams. lester holt will be here with

you this weekend. we, of course, hope to see you right back here on monday night. in the meantime, have a great weekend. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com western band association champions in3. a friendly white little kitty. maybe not little today. with a head larger than her small button eyes and nose. very cute.