gwen: more bad economic news spells bad political news for the president and possibly for the people who would replace him. we explain how it all works tonight on "washington week." >> our great ongoing challenge as a nation remains how to get this economy growing faster. gwen: the question of course is how to move things along a little more quickly. >> rather than tinker around the edges of what is a broken system, i'm going to drop a plan on the front steps of the capitol that says we need to

clean house. >> career politicians got us into this mess. and they simply don't know how to get us out. gwen: but at-bats the white house and congress -- as the white house and congress face off over when the president should speak -- >> thursday is the day, thursday is the day. we want to give the speech. the president wants to talk to the american people. gwen: the race for solutions has quickly turned into a race for the political upper hand. even when it comes to paying for disaster recovery. >> we believe at the end of the day the total damage will be close to $1 billion. >> those moneys will be offset with appropriate savings or cost cutting elsewhere in order to meet the priorities of the federal government's role in this situation. gwen: and the beat goes on. covering the week, eamon javers of cnbc. naftali bendavid of "the wall street journal." charles babington of the associated press. and jean cummings -- jeanne

cummings of bloomberg news. >> award-winning reporting and analysis, covering history as it happens. from our nation's capital, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill produced in association with national journal. corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> this rock has never stood still. since 1875 we've been there for our clients through good times and bad. when their needs changed we were there to meet them. through the years, from insurance to investment management, from real estate to retirement solutions, we've developed new ideas for the financial challenges ahead. this rock has never stood still. and that's one thing that will never change. prudential. >> corporate funding is also provided by boeing. at&t. rethink possible.

additional funding for "washington week" is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. more bad news on the jobs front today. sent the stock market into a tizzy and guaranteed that the president will spend his labor day weekend working. no job growth, a flat unemployment rate, and a sharp increase in unemployment among african-americans as 16.7%, now the highest since 1984. unimpressive new numbers as the president prepares to present his jobs plan to a joint session of congress next week. republican candidate mitt romney weighed in today while campaigning in florida. >> i watch washington right now and it breaks my heart. because the people there don't understand how america works. obama is not working.

and he has disappointed the american people and this morning, very bad news. did you see numbers that came out on job growth? look, there is zero faith in barack obama because he's created zero jobs last month. gwen: this economic undertoe is affecting everything this week, igniting new recession worries and raising as you just saw political questions for republicans and democrats alike. what are we to read into these numbers, eamon? >> it was a total wipeout. economists had expected maybe 60,000, 70,000 jobs created and this morning we saw zero new jobs created in the month of august. that's an astonishingly bad number. we saw the stock market respond. we saw the political system respond to that as you just saw. and this was the first time since february of 1945 that we had actually gotten a goose egg for the job number. it's been negative, of course, but that is a really bad sign and symbolically it's very bad. the r.n.c. put out a statement calling president obama president zero.

shortly after that number came out. so etc. an uphill climb on the economy now. gwen: perhaps the administration saw this coming because yesterday we saw the o.m.b., the office of management and budget, say it's going to be 9%. right now we're at 9.1% unemployment and be that through the election. >> it's not really turning around. and that's the problem for the obama administration. typically in the past, when we've had these monthly jobs report numbers come out, the president has gone out to a manufacturing plant or someplace where he can stand in front of some piece of equipment and give a sort of reassuring speech saying it wasn't good much but we're doing everything we can. we didn't see that from the president today. about 12:30, he left for camp david for a long weekend. and he didn't talk to reporters at all about this number. that was a little bit of a surprise. gwen: he walked croorks the line to the helicopter holding his daughter's sasha as if it was his last friend in the world. how does this affect his plans for his big speech next thursday night, chuck? >> gwen, the speech as you said was going to be about jobs all along. the problem is that there's only so much any president can

do and particularly this president because he's tried so many things. the stimulus package, which a lot of economists said helped. but it proved to be very unpopular with the public. and now there's so much emphasis on cutting spending, and that has an anti-stimulus effect if anything. so the president really is probably -- he'll repeat some of the rather small bore things he talked about like patent reform and trade deals that might produce some jobs. but the thinking is he can't -- he can't make a sweeping dramatic proposal, jobs, for jobs that would be very plausible. gwen: and he didn't even get to do it on the day that he originally chose he sent this letter to the hill saying i'll see you wednesday night at 8:00 and john boehner said not so much. >> it so happened gwen that was the night we'll have a republican debate, the first one involving rick perry. and even though john boehner, speaker boehner's response to him didn't mention the debate, he said wednesday night really would not be convenient. how about thursday night? the president did give in. the whole thing looked kind of muddled and messy.

and the big scheme of things not a big deal. but it wasn't a pretty picture. >> so chuck, what are the republicans saying about jobs? they do have this debate on wednesday night. and obviously the president is the president, but the republicans want to be president. so what kind of solutions do they have to offer? >> nastly, when you're the challenger you -- naftali, when you're the challenger you don't have to be specific. we saw mitt romney saying the president has failed, the president has failed. romney had give a speech tuesday where he will lay out some job proposals. but what the republicans have said over and over again we need to cut regulations, cut taxes or hold taxes down. and set a more robust environment for job creation. the truth is that taxes have been fairly low. and regulations haven't changed a lot. and that hasn't produced jobs, either. but they're not held responsible for it the way the president is. >> eamon, even if the president were to succeed to pass as chuck mentioned patent reform, and trade deals, the business community wants these things. that are hungry for them.

but they aren't going to be instant job creators. what kind of short-term thing does he have left that could make a difference between now and next summer? >> all of those measures are pretty small beer relative to the size of the u.s. economy. what he's trying to do is show they can do something. because what we've got going on is an economics stall of the same -- at the same time that we have a political stall on the part of the president. the economy at that point, we were saying earlier, when you're driving up a hill in the snow, and you start to realize hey, wait a second, i'm not going forward anymore and starting to slip to the slide, that's where the economy is and it's a little bit where the president is politically as well. we're starting to see his polls really take a nosedive now. and we're also starting to see some speculation that whatever he says next week, in terms of proposals, doesn't really stand much of a chance of getting through congress anyway. so there's a question of whether he can actually do anything at all at this point. and that's got to be what has the white house most scared at this point. gwen: and chuck, the president seems to be as he always seems to be, some sort of rock and a hard place. a lot of democrats aren't very

happy with him this week. and today, the latest example was he decided to hold off on these clean air regulations. which environmentalists really wanted. and in doing so, made the oil companies and the chamber of commerce very happy. >> that's right, gwen. every president sort of has to do a balancing act between his base and the independent voters that are crucial in a general election. and so for obama of course his base is a liberal base and they have been very unhappen about going all the way back to concessions made with health care and any number of things. and this ozone decision today, just really fired up in a very unhappen way the environmental community. -- in a very unhappy way the environmental community. what we might look for on this thursday speech before a jonet session of congress is a different tone from the president. he may draw a little sharper line regarding the problems of republicans digging in in a partisan way and what he might try to do is say i'm calling for bipartisanship and that's what i want and need but if you don't provide it we'll take our case to the american people.

>> that ozone decision was really more important than just the merits of the particular case. because what the president did there was he conceded the point to republicans that regulations inhibit economic growth. in their statement about that rule, and pulling back the e.p.a., they said the economy is simply too fragile for us to do right now. that's a republican point that overregulation is hurting the economy. that the obama administration by extension is hurting the economy by imposing all sorts of new regulations on -- obama basically played into the republican argument on that. that's one of the things. in addition to the environmental issue, itself, but conceding the case is what has the base so frustrated. >> what turns this around? what is there on the horizon that could possibly turn this terrible job situation around? and make it look a little better? gwen: and in time to please people like the congressional black caucus which is not very happy about these jobs numbers and don't see a way out. and getting increasingly vocal about it. >> that's what the problem right now. there's nothing really on the horizon that's going to turn this situation around. i mean, people expected that this would have been turned

around long ago. and economists were saying we should start to see growth. we should start to see growth. we're not seeing it. part of the reason why is u.s. corporations are extremely profitable right now. by and large. and a lot of them have been -- have an enormous amount of cash on hands. apple has more than $70 billion worth of cash. sitting on the sidelines. companies are very afraid of the economic outlook going forward. and so they're not doing anything with that money. if they were to put that money into the economy, start buying companies, building plants and doing something with it, that would help. but you got to get past that fear factor. and that's what's holding everything back. >> and we've discussed here, chuck, that the president probably can't get much through congress. and that's really bad for the president. but do republicans get a cake walk? they've got elections, too, next year. what is their political -- are there political ramifications for them as well? >> of course, jeanne, the republicans in congress, all in the house, and quite a few in the senate, do have to run for re-election. and generally speaking, in the big economic issues such as

jobs, the public, they see the president more than anyone else as the government. but i do think all of this portends a quite likely, very negative possibly very prusing -- bruising presidential campaign because when you're a president and have a bad economic record and there's not a whole lot you can do as we've been discussing here. the only thing you can do is make the alternative worse. and for some time you've been hearing obama's people say this will not be a referendum, it will be a choice. of course it will be a referendum but that's a code -- that's code for you think things are bad with us, the other guy would be even worse. >> does it matter anymore whether the president inherited this mess? or does he now fully own it? >> no. i think going into the election next year, you're going to hear the famous question are you better off now than you were four years ago? and four years ago, the implication is during the president's time in office. and i think he's got to answer that. he owns the economy politically. >> i don't think they can frame the question exactly that way which is the way that ronald reagan famously phrased it because right at the time of the 2008 election things were very, very bad. polls do show that to some

degree, people still pin some of this problem on george w. bush. >> a majority of them. >> which is kind of surprising. now, the election is 16 months away. what that number will be then i don't know. but that is a ray of hope for obama. gwen: well, he's probably happy for any ray of hope at this stage. thank you all. it's one thing to talk about economic and political theory, but this is where the rubber hits the road. disaster spending. the question, is it really possible for the federal government to help states hit by hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, without cutting something somewhere else? we got the first test of that argument this week, didn't we? >> we did. because eric cantor, the house marnlt leader, suggested that if -- majority leader, suggested that if we give aid to victims of hurricane irene, we should, that money should be offset by cuts elsewhere if possible. and that immediately was jumped on by democrats who were saying look, that's not compassionate. these are our fellow americans suffering. and we have to not get back into the political debate over

spending. we just got to help these folks. gwen: and also jumped on by some republicans as well who happen to be governors of the state? >> particularly chris christie in new jersey and bob mcdonell in virginia, eric cantor's home state, they didn't jump on him but took a different view and in fairness to eric cantor they don't have to worry about federal spending because they're state governors and said we need the money and let's not worry about offsetting it and need help now. it's an interesting and emotional issue. because i think the public is very affected by images of their fellow americans suffering. and to have that come up against this concern about spending, makes for a very interesting and unusual tension. >> how did cantor respond to the criticism? there's this immediate firestorm when he said it. what was his statement, 24 hours, 48 hours later? >> well, his folks would not say that he backed off it. but it's true that he didn't repeat it. and his office put out some things that seemed intendeto soften it and made it clear they think victims should get help and the president has not actually asked for anything. why are we even talking about

this? and i think it's something where republicans see a bit of peril. because disaster relief is one of those areas where even budget hawks, think we need to be spending money to roll for the federal government. and so you don't necessarily want to get into a fight about exactly how disaster relief spending is offset. >> and where are we now? clearly irene is going to cost the government quite a bit of money. there are a lot of people who have suffered tremendous loss with their homes and their cars and not to mention people's lives. but where's the money? do they have the money? >> well, that is interesting. in some ways this whole thing is taking place in the realm of the hypothetical because there's no overall estimate of the cost. the administration hasn't asked congress for more money. the reason this came up is that the federal emergency management agency, fema, its disaster relief fund is down to about $700 million. which is on the low end. and in fact, they've decided that they're not going to consider some long-term projects because they want to save their resources for people who need it now. and so the question is, when

will that fund really run low or start running out? when will the administration ask for money? that hasn't happened yet. and so to some degree this won't come to a head until this happens. gwen: we remember how poorly fema was seen in 2005 after katrina. have they managed to walk this tightrope, especially in this political back-and-forth? >> i think they have. you're hearing even chris christie, governor of new jersey, rising republican star, his state was hit pretty badly and he's had nothing but praise for fema. and you haven't really heard criticism of the agency itself. in direct contrast to what we saw after katrina. and they've basically handled this whole flap by staying out of it. as you would expect them to do. they're not saying anything about offsets. they're not saying anything about spending. they're just reassuring people that they're going to get the aid that they need and that they'll ask for help if they need it. they have walked a very careful tightrope. they do want it avoid being the same sort of punching bag that they were a few years back. >> who can blame them? >> does this foreshadow debates we're going to see further down the road when we start talking about deficit reduction?

a lot of people like the idea of cutting government in the abstract but oh, you're going to cut fema after a hurricane? that doesn't seem like such a great idea. so when the supercommittee sits down to look -- they're going to run into this thing over and over. >> i think they are. everybody took great note of this deal that we reached in early august. but that didn't end the fight. in fact, a lot of the things in the deal, they were triggers and there were limits and there were caps. but some of the nitty-gritty tough decisions have yet to be made. and a lot of decisions like this one on fema. that people are going to be hurt, that cuts are going to mean something to people. and so i think what they show is we're going to see this sort of battle play out offer and over again in the next few months. gwen: there's no agreement on what is immune. war spending has been considered immune to this kind of balanced budget, this zero pay as you go kind of concept. and so has disaster spending. >> exactly. those are the two big areas. where they've been considered kind of beyond this budgetary discussion. but i don't think that's true anymore. even republicans are putting defense spending on the table. and of course some republicans are talking about offsetting disaster relief. i think it's a new ball game.

and these battles are going to be bloody and difficult. and this is just the first of many. gwen: it's a real reality check and another one for you. it's one thing for challengers to declare that it's time for the incumbent to go. it's another thing for them to raise the money to make it happen. mitt romney, rick perfecty, jon huntsman and michelle bauch man are all raising -- bachmann are all rarings the money but will they use it to turn the fire on the president or each other? >> this fight will get a lot more interesting. the primary among the republicans, the entry of rick perry, governor of texas, a hardball player, sharp elbows, sharp tongue, noted for being an expert at defining his opponent before his opponent can define himself. gwen: never lost an election. >> never lost an election. been in office for almost two decades. so he gets in the race. and everybody started to put up their defenses. and michelle bauch man --

bachmann was among the first. her rise after that straw pole victory and the first to dip into what is called a superpac. which is technically not hers and never coordinates with these people but they went out and launched the first attack ad of the primary. they have released it this week. it will run next week. in the beginning of the week in south carolina. and that's where the superpacs, the brand new toy of the presidential campaign, will be playing this year. in the superpac of course is a political action committee just like any other, but because of a loophole, in federal election law, that when on steroids, after the -- that went on steroids after the supreme court decision takes unlmented amounts of money from anyone. so they can rev up one of these things with four friends with million dollar checks. or less. gwen: we love our loopholes. >> talk about the role these superpacs play and is it possible they could be just so

out of control of the candidate that they could be a problem or is that very unlikely? >> in a presidential campaign, that's difficult. however, we saw in 2010 in the midterm, when we saw the trial run of this type of committee, that we did have house races in particular, where you have an incumbent democrat basically running against these committees. the actual republican candidate they were running against in at least two cases were broke. they have no money. but the democrat was forced to spend millions on advertising because these groups came in and spent millions against him or her. the senate, not so much. the senators were able to fight back. so i think in a presidential campaign, they're not going to be able to rise to that level. presidential candidates should be able to take care of themselves. but what's happened is everybody is in the game now. the democrats were late last year in 2010. not so now. so we have six candidates who have supercommittees. superpacs. and between them all, there are

12 superpacs. some of them are consolidating. rick perfecty came into the race with six of them -- perry came into the race with six of them. they're consolidating into one. michelle bachmann has two right now. obama has two right now. but they're coordinated. gwen: we should say obama partisans and bachmann partisans and perry partisans. >> it's either friends of these particular candidates. even ron paul's friends have started one. with a name that i actually think is wonderful. it's the revolution pac. and that's perfect for the ron paul crew. >> how do these republicans fundraising compare to the president's? we've seen -- he's taken such a political beating in the past couple of months and yet you see his schedule, and he's got a lot of time on there for going out and having dinner at the homes of wealthy don yorks. -- donors. >> the white house knows from everything you've spoken about, they are in for a race. they knew they were in for a race anyway and incumbents get challenged because they have a record. and it's just a tougher re-election -- re-election is tougher.

but it's made all the worse because of the economy. so they know they're in for a hard race. and that's going to cost a lot of money. in terms of the fundraising, he's cleaning their clocks. he raised over $40 million in the second quarter with events with the d.n.c., if you put it all together, it was $86 million. and romney raised the most for the republican field at $18 million. so that's how much more money he's got than them. but bachmann and perrys are unknown to us right now. they are both also noted fundraisers. they are -- have built their own reputations. bachmann raised more money than any other house member. $13 million in the last cycle. and she did much -- much of that with small donors, a la obama. that's a hidden strength with michelle bachmann. that will get a good look at when her report comes out later this month. she got into the race four days before the last report deadline. so there was no way to measure her strength. perry, on the other hand, is

also a noted fundraiser. gwen: quickly. >> well, i just was wondering how the shakeup in the presidential campaign with the entrance of perry, how that has affected fundraising on the republican side. >> perry has come in and tried to scoop up people who were on the sidelines and friends of mississippi governor haley barbour. and he's also working the ex-tim pawlenty crowd trying to collect up those friends and build a broad national donor base. gwen: we'll wait for the next report to see how everyone is competing against each other. thank you everyone. we're out of time for now but keep one daily developments including live pbs coverage of the president's jobs speech all week on the pbs newshour and as we enter a period of observances for the 10th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, turn to washington week online for special features showcasing how our "washington week" panelists covered and experienced the day and the years that followed. we'll post new remembrances on our web site every day beginning tuesday. you can find us at pbs.org. and we'll also have a special look on next week's broadcast. here's a preview.

happy labor day. and good night. >> reporters get into this business because we want to be on the front row. we want to affect history. we want to at least witness it. but we never anticipate that something like september 11 is going to come along. that's going to force us to understand it in a completely differently way. >> you know, they said that day, this is going to change everything. and it did. >> we looked at each other and just complete disbelief at what had happened. >> so i ran the distance to the pentagon. and everyone else was running away from it. i was running toward it. >> al qaeda. we know this is going to be al qaeda. there is no one else it can be. >> the first time that i remember and it's never happened since that people around me in washington, not just in the newsroom that i was in, but all around the city, were scared. because they didn't know what would happen. >> we cover national politics where there are tragedies and we do it with a kind of reserve

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