an overnight operation. this happened in the tangi valley just west of kabul and president obama release add statement on the deadly crash saying my thoughts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of the americans who were lost earlier today in afghanistan. we go now to nbc's reporter in kabul. another good day to you. any new updates how this happened? >> reporter: good day, alex. we're only actually hearing from afghan officials here in afghanistan. the u.s. and nato officials are tight-lipped what is going on. they will say a helicopter went down in this province and they're investigating what went down but not giving number. we actually heard from president hamid karzai, the afghan president, in a statement. he said 31 american special forces alongside 7 afghan special forces were inside that helicopter that went count.

president karzai offered condolences to the president and well as the families. a statement released saying that the helicopter was, in fact, approaching one of their compounds in the province, this district southwest of kabul when the insurgents, the tapp taliba fired a rocket propelled grenade at the helicopter bringing it down. they lost eight of their own fighters but also claim to have killed 38 nato members. the number we're actually getting from afghan officials. we're hearing from afghan officials who say the investigation is under way. they are still retrieving dead bodies as well as pieces from the helicopter. >> can you put some perspective here, atiyeh, in terms of how big a loss this is and also i heard from an earlier report you said there have been reports, whether or not confirmed, this may have been members of the navy s.e.a.l.s? anything further on that?

>> reporter: we're hearing that as many as 20 of them could have been a part of the navy s.e.a.l.s. obviously, many americans know about the navy s.e.a.l.s especially when it comes to the bin laden raid thp those were the guys who killed osama bin laden. not necessarily the same navy s.e.a.l.s that may have perished today in this province. this is a great loss. as you know, any american loss in afghanistan is a loss -- 31 american family members suffering, 7 afghan families suffering here as well. this is going to be a big morale boost for the taliban. these are the things they look for, the kind of motivation they send out. they're going to have propaganda videos going out to their fighters throughout the country motivating them to continue to fight. they'll be sending these messages across the border in pakistan where we expect many of the taliban commanders are currently stationed because of the month of ramadan. so obviously, a big morale boost for the taliban. they know by the end of this

year 10,000 american troops are supposed to leave the country, because that was enstated by the obama administration and they know by 2012, 28,000 will be leaving afghanistan. they know by 2014 they expect the afghans to take over. many taliban biding their time for that date. others continuing the fight as we saw today. >> nbc's atiya in kabul, thank you. now to the newest blow to the u.s. economy. the country has lost its aaa credit rating for the first time in history. standard & poor's says it decided to take the u.s. down a notch after the long, drawn-out debt fight in washington. to put this in perspective, the u.s. made it through the great depression and every world war since world war i with its perfect credit rating intact. cnbc chief washington correspondent john harwood is live at the white house with another good morning to you, john. you know, that statistic just put there in terms of all of this since 1917 when we maintained, this credit rating. this is embarrassing, but how

so? how much so for the white house and congress? >> reporter: it's a huge embarrassment. congress and the white house have been trying for months to get a deficit reduction deal and raise the debt limit. republicans refused unless they had a major deficit reduction package and they insisted on only spending cuts. that didn't produce a package the size of which standard & poor's said was needed to avoid a downgrade and that's why we got in this situation. it's embarrassing for the president. it's on his watch. it's embarrassing for republicans. now they've acquired co-ownership of the economy, the bad economy, heading into 2012, what mr. mcconnell was worried about, and it's a difficult situation all around. >> so, john, all of what we went through, wasn't it supposed to avoid what has happened? but to help the u.s. not have a downgrade? >> reporter: well, first of all, the deal was supposed to help the u.s. avoid default. we have avoided default. it's also important to point out

two out of the three major rating agencies preserved aaa so far. that's moody's and fitch. this is only a partial step and there's controversy associated with it, the administration pointed out a major mathematicy error in s&p figuring out what debt to gdp was going to be. nevertheless, this is something that the political system can take another crack at. you've got a special committee about to be appointed to seek a trillion and a half dollars in additional reduction. we'll see if washington can deliver better results, that the market will respect as much. >> can you get to, i guess, the practical aspect of all this? what this means for people's wallets, having a downgrade of u.s. credit? >> the hope of the administration is next to none because of what i mentioned, moody's and fitch not downgrading. however, if the markets react negatively. if investors say with this new rating i want more interest if i'm going to lend you money,

then all of our mortgage rates, all of our car loan rates, other consumer debt we have those interest rates would go up. we've got to see how markets will react and we know investors and their psyche is fragile right now. >> john harwood at the white house, we'll speak to you again bottom of the hour. thank you, john. i talked to the s&p credit downgrade issue and here it is. >> s&p one of the three major credit agencies the other two did not do this. it's a political thing. government pushing back saying they were over by $2 trillion and are pushing back hard. see if investors believe it. bottom line, it's an washington, hows handled this debt issue, how they'll handle it in the future. not a lot of faith according to s&p they'll be able to handle it, u.s. government bonds and currency of the united states has long been considered one of the safest on the planet. according to s&p, not the entire planet, canada, united kingdom, germany, france, more secure

investments. if you want to believe that, than the united states. asian markets, you don't have to wait until monday. asian markets open sunday night. a special on msnbc, by the way, we all know in a treacherous sell-off quickly, rates can go up quickly. the key for americans, how does that affect them? will think credit card rates go up? mortgage rates go up? that's going to be the key. >> brian shactman from cnbc, the same rating as belgium now for the u.s. and new zealand. and blaming president obama for losing the credit rating. mitt romney says the latest casualty in president obama the record of failed leadership on the economy. jon huntsman, we need new leadership in washington. a balanced budget and job-friendly policies to get america working again. an associate editor and columnist for the hill. welcome back. >> hi. >> both candidates saying this is a failure of leadership.

do you think americans see this as a failure on the president's part? >> i actually learned this week when default was averted and the deal cut that in polling, brand new polling, the american public blames congressional republicans more than congressional democrats or the president. so it's going to be -- it's going to be blame i think that's shared ultimately. he is the president of the united states. this is an historic event that happened on his watch. the economy is in tatters right now, and i really think that he is going to end up sharing the blame, and a lot depends on the next few months. on how he kind of frames this debate. how hard he pushes for a big compromise that could get us back on a track to some kind of fix for our long-term structural debt and how the debate plays out this fall, but he's going to have to push back hard. republicans will be eager to blame him. >> okay. but the president is certainly going to push back and he could take a look and say, look, i strongly support that grand

bargain, which speaker boehner walked away from a week ago thursday, and then it became clear later that boehner could not sell it to his base. account president say he was pushing for a deal that would have avoided this down. grade? >> what the president has to do is balance his private message with his public message. he really infuriated speaker boehner when he moved the goal post and the white house conceded that the president did. they were getting a message from republicans who served on the gang of six committee in the senate, conceding that spending cuts had to be paired with revenue increases in order to reach a true significant deficit reduction. a signal to the white house maybe the president could push for more. he pushed for more. the speaker walked away. if he's willing to convince the public he can go far in entitlement reforms and other tough decisions to help the bottom line on deficit reduction also trying to rebuild trust with speaker boehner, there will be the appetite on the speaker's

part to come back to the table for a grand bargain. without it right now the -- know, there's bad blood between them and a lot of, you know, mistrust and stuff, it's not really a good atmosphere for negotiating. they have to get going. the deadline is approaching at thanksgiving but he's going to have to build back that trust up to really get back to the table on cutting any kind of bargain. >> okay. as always, many thanks. appreciate it. >> thanks. as our coverage of the u.s. downgrade continues, a look at what effect has on your personal finances and will it cause interest rates to rise? we'll walk about that right here on "msnbc saturday." all i could! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people

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at 13 past the hour, we've been reporting all morning about the helicopter crash in afghanistan. not far from kabul, which took

out some u.s. service members. let's get details now. from our sources at pentagon, and they share with us of these 31 killed, all americans, as many as 20 of them are navy s.e.a.l.s. there are five army, six crew. several u.s. airmen, one dog as well traveling on this trip. also, afghans killed to inclues 7 afghan troops and one afghan interpret who was a civilian. this information from sources at the pentagon. we've yet to hear official confirmation, but the fact we were able to report this for now you know that is probably eminent official word from the administration. more details as we get them to you. meantime, standard & poor's said political brinkmanship contradicted to downgrading the u.s. credit rating. a new poll found more voters disapprove how republicans handled the debate. a poll found 72% of voters disapprove how the gop handled

negotiations compared with 66% disapproval of democrats, 47% disapproval of the president. an joining me, our guests, welcome back to the two of you. look, joe, more americans don't particularly like republicans -- during this debate with the debt, however, it's political brinkmanship is what concerns standard & poor's, don't republicans own a big parts of this? >> the not so much about how they acted. you know, if you do the right thing, you may not be popular, and if more politicians would say, you know what? i'm committed to doing the right thing for america and don't really care about the temporary popularity we'd be in better shape than we are. >> if it makes fiscal sense, wouldn't the s&p come onboard and say, yeah, it's unpopular, we understand were you didn't like -- people don't like to do

it but it makes fiscal sense. why downgrade if what we ended up with does not make fiscal sense? >> we ended with a compromise that didn't go far enough helping get our fiscal house in order in terms of cutting spending. republicans saying, again and again and again, not because the nice or popular to say, it's not. they're saying you can't spend money you don't have. whatever cuts we've agreed to, some members of the republican party thought the deal wasn't good enough. they were angry. this deal doesn't go far enough and the s&p say grezs&p agreed doesn't go far enough. we need to do more with regards to our willingness to get our budget balanced. nobody wants to make the hard decisions. everybody wants to be re-elected. postured to their electorate, i'm a nice guy, a good person and i don't want to hurt you and

i'm fighting to protect you and your little piece of the pie, and we all lose as a result of it. >> yeah. so peter, who do you think is going to shoulder more of this downgrade blame? >> well, i think ultimately, it will be the tea party folks, alex. it's my way or the highway crowd. i do agree with joe that the american people are absolutely furious right now. they want to see folks who don't just wet their fingers and put it up to the political winds and go one way or the other, and i think that that's why -- that's why there's this conundrum that people feel about taking a stand, being strong, stand up for something and yet being able to get something done. ultimately, though, they do want compromise and that's why the republicans are in such bad shape on this. if you look at the poll, also, alex, on the tea party, in 2010, their negative was 8%. it's now up to 40%. more people now dislike the tea

party than like it, because it was a rorshach before. everybody's mad. whoever these guys are, i'm for them. now that they see them in action, they don't like it. joe won't use the r word, the revenue word, that's the bottom -- >> that's a bad word, peter. >> it's not a bad word, especially when you have temporary tax cuts and -- >> anybody that doesn't know -- >> i said it. i said the word. i said the word, i agree with you. i'm not afraid of it. look, you put in temporary tax cuts, cuts the economy $1.8 trillion and now all of this administration and all the s&p folks saying in their report is, let's have balanced reduction. you know, this is the whole point here. if this pushes us in november and december towards what the gang of six put forth towards what boehner and the president almost agreed to without the revolt from the tea party, you would have what you and i are

talking about, joe. you'd have a $4 trillion -- >> a $4 trillion bill so sweet if we could have gotten that deal. great. gotten the deal without any revenue and without new taxes, even sweeter. >> well, i'm not for cutting folks -- on the back of senior citizens and folks out of a job, and people that have had their houses foreclosed on, but i think there's a balance here, but i'm afraid, joe, that the republicans and the tea party, in a sense, have gone too far. in other words, they -- >> the reasons for no new revenues, no new taxes is because you don't want to put a burden on the job creators. as it is right now we have, in real term, close to 16.1 unemployment around the country. all of these people working part time in jobs that pay less than what their old jobs used to pay them. people who stopped looking for work. people looking for. the average range for people

looking for work is ten months. the third rise in three months we've had. ten months out of work. >> i agree. >> we cannot kill the job creators by saying, no new taxes to get them back to work. >> i know. that's not what we're talking about. look, what we've got here in this knt right now, in my view, is the fear factor. it's taken over. the fear factor people are scared to invest. the $ trillion sitting on the side lines in the companies. $2 trillion. i agree with you. the 50,000, small business, but millionaires and billionaires -- >> uncertainty makes them afraid. >> i agree. >> when they hear things like, no new taxes for right now but we can't wait until the bush tax cuts come to an end in 2012, that scares them. >> poor alex. >> hi, guys. i'm just here in the studio. this is a conversation that's great. you actually let me sit back -- no. don't apologize. thank you so much. we'll have you do it again, although i might be a little more involved later on in the

hour. thank you. coming up, today would have been comedienne lucille ball's birthdays. plenty of celebrations to honor her. that's coming up next on "msnbc saturday." they are putting

shovels down. the new york dig is shutting down after 29 years due to a lack of funding. considered one of the three ishest archaeological sites in the world, the dig made hundreds of discoveries over the years including 15 masodons, massive creatures who roamed the earth 300 million years ago. i think it was 100 million years ago. the anniversary of lucille ball and "i love lucy" marks its 60th anniversary. including an exhibit on louis they focuses on that show as well as her long career.

joining me from los angeles is paul sheehan, curator of the hall. >> good morning. >> i'm glad you're here. put into perspective how popular was the "i love lucy" show. >> so popular when little ricky was born, 91% of america tuned in to see little ricky being born. it happened to be the exact same day lucy gave birth in real life. the first woman to be pregnant on television. you couldn't say the word pregnant back then. >> incredible. 97% the country tuned in for little rick ji that's incredible? >> yeah. 91%. higher than president eisenhower who got jogginaugurated that sa day, and later had an encounter and said, this is the young boy that beat me out of the ratings. >> talk about the exhibit at the museum. tell me about the highlights. >> it's really wonderful, because it covers her whole career and also the genius of desi.

we have to remember, he invented the concept of three cameras filming in front of the studio audience. that hadn't existed before. because they filmed it is why we still have the shows today to watch. it takes us right back to their beginnings and goes right through her whole life. >> you know, i see that little local oh. the heart, the i love lucy heart there, there at the open of the show. something that even google has taken on today, when people go to the googles it's there in tribute. in terms of lucille ball, were she a tv star right now in her prime, would she be able to own the airwaves in the same way, do you think? >> i think so. she k credited the writers. the first episode she says at one point talking about getting married. every sense we said i do, there are things we don't. harder, this domestic comedy. about a man and woman struggling in their marriage. "i love lucy." it was all about ricky and lucy,

whatever her hijinks and crazy pra dickments, it always ended with a hug and kiss and it has that warmth, that heart ta it. people still respond to that and i think it would have been a hit even today. >> these two being the stars really ran the show as well. they did it our desi lu productions. their own studio. a novel concept two stars running a studio as well? >> absolutely. in fact, it sort of -- she had to convince cbs to let desi play her husband. she said, he's my husband in real life. they formed a production company. they ended up owning it, and only in '57 do they sell it back to cbs when they end up buying, rko, the stud yes they met in 1940. she ends up as the first woman to head up a major studio after the divorce. >> you know, this almost strikes me as being the first of the reality tv shows, in some ways. i mean, they were taking their real life and putting it on

television. though beautifully scripted we don't usually get in the jersey shores ever the world. i'm just saying. don't you agree, there was something to that? >> it's interesting, because, really, lucille ball struggled for years to become a star. worked her way up through the chorus and then a contract player. it's interesting. there is that parallel with lucy ricardo desperate to end up in movies. i don't think lucille ball ever had to stomp grapes to get into the movies. she pretty much did everything else, and that was her philosophy. she used to say to young people, say you can do anything and then go out and learn how to do it. if they want you to ride a horse, you can ride a horse and then go learn. that can-do attitude. >> really did. thank you for speaking with us as well as life.com that provided some of the picture we were able to see. a good friend i know is part of that museum, say hello to paul o'neill. >> thank you. and what does it mean for the markets and your money? a question for the round table.

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texas governor rick perry is attending a massive christian prayer and fasting event in houston that kicked off just in this last hour. live events right now. live pictures of the event called "the response." rick perry is undecided whether he's running for president made his pitch for the gathering this week online. >> well, the lieutenant govern has really been -- tells me thousand live my life, absolutely i do that, but the idea that -- in the regulatory classes, it's fair to predict the legal system -- it's been a while -- >> joining me now on the phone, nbc is in houston with this

event. a good morning, talk about the schedule today and the role, if any, governor perry will be playing. what do you know about that? >> reporter: hi, alex. so far mostly music and prayer. it kind of seems like a combination of a really, really big church service and a christian rock concert so far. it's going to calm down when the speakers are coming onstage. governor perry is expected to speak briefly about noon central time and his remarks are not scheduled to be long. described as prayer and skip cher and probably less than ten minutes. later in the day we'll hear remarks from two other elected officials. the governor of kansas who will be here and governor rick scott of florida, who is going to be appearing by video. then in between that there's just going to be, it seems, a lot of music a lot of prayer. there's people that are standing in front. sort of -- it looks like a mosh pit but a crowd of people standing in front of the stage,

praying, raising their hands. it looks like it's going to be many, many hours of that in between remarks. >> you talk about many hours and saying later in the day. in fact, most traditional christian church services run about an hour. this is supposed to go seven hours and also streamed live through 1,000 churches and their websites around the country. it is going to have quite a large reach. how about the numbers of people there, though? i know they were expecting thousands. when you look at the stadium, it has like a 71,000 person capacity. has it filled up? >> right. it's a football stadium, where the houston texans play. actually, there was a practice taking place across the street earlier today. underscores how big this stadium is. the organizers say there's about 5700 seats on the floor, and those are primarily full. about 17,000 seats around on the lower deck of that stadium, and those are probably, at this point, 60% to 70% full as well.

the crowd, it's well exceeding the earlier estimate that it was going to be about 8,000 people that were registering to attend. this looks like it's vastly exceeded that estimate. >> carrie, the governor says this event is not political at all. it cannot be overlooked this would appeal very much to the right-wing base of the gop? >> reporter: true. a lot of organizations here in houston and around the country have made that point, that even though he had formerly declared he will be running for president, he still certainly is in the political eye and there's over 250 reporters, political reporters registered to cover this event. that wouldn't be the case if he wasn't considered for the nomination. and actually outside where i'm standing i can see a small group of gay rights activists protesting this event saying that rick perry, and his views, exclude other religions outside of christianity and the gay community. so you are seeing reaction and

backlash from that. >> covering things, nbc's carry ri, thank you. with the latest job numbers and credit downgrades, lots of speculation whether the u.s. is entering a delicate recession or just one big economic dive. let's bring in our panel to weigh in on this. cnbc washington cord john harwood live at the white house all day, and joining us along with eric dash in the studio and vera gibbons, msnbc analyst. with another good morning to you, john, reach out to you first because you're long distance there. do you believe we are starting a double-dip recession here? >> reporter: i don't, and i think the jobs numbers from friday are some indication we're not. adding 154,000 private sector jobs was better than had been expected. even if we're not entering a double dip recession we know, alex, we're in for a period of slow growth and protracted high unemployment. whether or not it is a recession, it will feel like a recession to millions and millions of people.

>> let's talk about how this affects everyday folks, vera. look what happened across the board on wall street. s&p is down, the dow down 5.8%. nasdaq, 8.1%. s&p also down 7.2%. how does this play out to affect people? >> there's that crazy day last week when 2 trillion was wiped out in household wealth. everyone went into panic mode, freaked out. that's the worse thing you can do in this environment. in this type of environment, uncertain, have a nice position in cash. shore up balance sheets. that's the way to preserve capital. dividends in stocks one safe haven. >> this, to you, eric, i always have, a quandary to figure why some of these companies are sitting on big, huge piles of cash and yet they announce layoffs and those companies would include this week in terms of layoff announcements, merck, cisco systems and lockheed martin. plumably healthy fortune 500

companies. where's the disconnect jfrgts it's one thing to be profitable today and moving gang buster profits, another thing to show growth. we're seeing the economy slow. it just takes time for that to play off. what these company, saying is, we don't have visibility on what our growth picture is going to look like down the road. so we better be more safe than sorry. >> and not necessarily to hire -- >> the biggest effect from the downgrade. shatter consumer and business confidence if anything more than any direct economic impact. >> yeah. you know -- >> i tell you this view from the administration, it's that fundamentally what we're seeing is a decline of demand as consumers deleverage themselves in the wake of the financial crisis and that until businesses are confident that they're going to have customers, they may be investing in commitment, may be investing towards exports. in terms of consumer demand in the united states, it's just not there in sufficient quantity ey right now. >> you talk about investing in commitment and infrastructure,

other countries that have gone through this have done and come out strong on the other side. at least that's a silver lining. asking a twitter question all day about what is concerning people most about this debt downgrade and john i'll throw this to you. this comes from a person who says, the debacle of 2008, how could anyone attach any credibility to anything the rating agencies would report? do you do you respond to that, john? >> reporter: a good question and the point the administration is making. made it the other night and in light of their history. everybody was chasing what happened in the financial crisis. mistakes made in government, in wall street and mistakes made on wall street and the dodd frank legislation, the new financial legislation bill tried to increase accountability. i'm sure the rating agencies internally tried to tighten things up and respond, but clearly, subjective judgment. three major rating agencies, two of them say we're aaa and only

standard & poor's downgraded. >> all of this discussion today. a twitter response from 108east who writes, i'm worried increased interest rates will cause the economy to tank even more than it is. >> tank is a tough thing to follow. treasury yields, 50 or 60 points, shave growth off the top. looking at maybe 50 basis points and growth is already essentially zilch. tank's a strong word bet dustde in worse position. we don't have jobs don't have growth. >> even with all the noise in the turbulence of the stock market, look at the bond market, specifically the treasury markets and treasury bond markets, yields on 30-year bonds actually went down. it's shocking and amazing. i think it's saying that this debt ceiling debate is basically sending a message to wall street that where congress is actually raising that issue. it may be a messy process, and stocks may look sloppy, but we're on our way to solving that

problem, and that's at least a message people on wall street are taking. >> okay. response from two experts to that. thank you both. john harwood on the white house lawn and also to you eric dash and vera gibbons, thank you. next on "msnbc saturday," a father's outrage. how he's leading the charge for justice in the fatal beating of his homeless son at the hands of police. you're watching "msnbc saturday." i love that my daughter's part fish. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people

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police in fullerton, california are facing intense criticism over failure to provide information about how a homeless man died after a violent confrontation with police officers last month. six officers have been place and administrative leave after beating to death kelly thomas, a 37-year-old homeless drifter. now the community is demand answers and holding protests and vigils throughout the city, but the mayor of fullerton, richard jones, is asking everyone to calm down.

>> almost a lynch-type of mob. and we can't do that. >> joining me live from orange california is kelly thomas' father ron, who will hold a protest outside the police station in a few minutes from now. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> of course, i will just tell folks you and i spoke during the commercial break, and we offered our condolences which will forever be there for you, but this protest you'll be involved in in this hour, what are you hoping to accomplish or get out there today? >> we need to make sure that all the people are aware, especially the good people of fullerton what has happened in their community. i just looked to the -- listened to the mayor's comments. he really doesn't care. the majority of city council doesn't care, and that's a typical comment from him. you know, lynch mob and things. he's never got up there once and tried to calm the city. he has never called my son's

mother or i or anybody from the family to offer condolences. it's been really bad. so the people are outraged at them, also. for lack of concern. there's only two city council members that cared at all. >> ron, we have to tell people that you are a retired law enforcement officer. correct? >> yeah. formerly from the orange county sheriff's department here. >> you know about the challenges firsthand that face police officers. from what you know, what happened around the beating death of your son? was there anything that your son kelly did by witness accounts, eyewitness accounts, that warranted police coming on strong towards him? >> there's nothing that warranted that. evidently there was a call -- to go investigate, and they're really not making it clear what

it was at this point, so they approached my son. there's a lot of witness statements out there. a lot of new information coming out there to include the approaching officer as he's putting on some leather gloves. >> why would -- why would a police officer -- why would a police officer do that? put on leather gloves? >> well, so as he's punchinging my son he doesn't hurt himself for one and that's what he told my son. that these are the hands that are about to beat you up, and i've cleaned that up just a little bit, from what he really said. and according to witnesses. i mean, my son's in a mental state. a schizophrenic mind. it's almost child-like and afraid. so he puts his hands up like he's going to get hit and they cage him and hit him with a baton, not knowing what it's going on. he runs. they tackle him and start beating him up. calling for more reinforcements hethts runs from them and they take him down further and

continue to beat him. something i heard in a report, that really haunts me, and i can only imagine how it haunts you, is that your son was calling out one of the last things he was able to be heard saying is, hed help me, dad. >> yeah. as it progressed, as they ketasg him, calling for more help, 1600 worth of testosterone all over my son, he's yelling, stop, stop, help me god, the last words of his are, you couldn't have put this in a hollywood script is dad, dad -- he basically killed him. beat him remindedly with a taser and it's more than awful. >> yeah. it's horrific, frankly, but that said, the police community, they responded by putting these six

officers out on administrative leave. what do you expect to happen as a result of the demonstration you have planned shortly? where do you think this thing will go? >> well, they only placed them on administrative leave after i had a private one-on-one with the chief and one of the captains in a closed door in the chief's office. i spoke to them probably about a half hour or more. an hour later these guys are all taken off, on administrative duty. as far as the protest it is, again to make awareness. make everybody aware of what's going on. this community is outraged. i don't live in fullerton. my son did. he was loved here, just really loved by all the people. and the community is hurt. not only again did they kill my son, but they killed somebody, these cops killed somebody that the community really, really loved, and they're mad about it, and i'm glad to see that. >> all right. well, ron thomas, we'll follow this story and see what happens

down the road. meantime good luck with the demonstration today, and, again, our thoughts are with you. >> thank you very much. the drop in the rating may surely cost the nation greatly, but will it cost president obama? you're watching msnbc saturday. that's about 34 million pounds of mail every day. ever wonder what this costs you as a taxpayer? millions? tens of millions? hundreds of millions? not a single cent. the united states postal service doesn't run on your tax dollars. it's funded solely by stamps and postage. brought to you by the men and women of the american postal workers union. ♪ perdue perfect portions is great on busy nights. five chicken breasts individually wrapped, so you can use what you want and put the rest in the refrigerator. and the best part is it only takes 10 minutes. it's my go-to meal.

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terrifying moments at denver's coors last night, a line drive hitting the piper right there in the head. he remained on the ground for about six minutes. he was taken to the hospital where his team says he's resting comfortably. we certainly wish him well. the loss of america's platinum credit rating could mean trouble for president obama and his hopes for re-election. and then there was this comment at a chicago fund-raiser on wednesday. >> when i said change we can

believe in, i didn't say change we could believe in tomorrow. not change we could believe in next week. we knew this was going to take time. >> here with me now, peter fenn joining me from washington and joe watkins, republican strategist and former white house aide for president george h.w. bush. hey, guys, the president talks about it taking time. so to you, peter, does the president have enough time ahead to get re-elected in 2012, given this economic malaise? >> i think so, alex. look, 70% of the people know this wasn't his fault, his problem. they expect him to do something about it, but when you have a situation that is as -- almost as bad as the great depression and you're trying to get out of it, you don't just snap your finger and move it. but he's got to compromise and move the country forward. >> but peter, i'm going to say

nobody really wants to hear whose fault this is anymore. people just want it fixed. >> they want it fixed, that's correct, alex. but that gives you some money in the bank to do what you need to do. the problem right now is, you know, it takes two to tango. this is really about the american people and getting them out of this ditch. >> and joe, the president sense his economy is his number one priority but the changes he's pushing for and what congress is focused on, two very different ball games right now. is there any ground for compromise between the parties? and if you look at what just happened with the debt ceiling negotiation, i'm going to say that answer is a -- i don't know. >> the burden is on the president. he's a tremendous communicator. if he can get everybody to focus on jobs, putting americans back to work, that 9.1% unemployment rate is skewed. there was an uptick of 40%, that

is up to 1.1 million americans stopped looking for work. it means there are more people looking for work than ever before. only 58.1% of americans are working right now. he's got to focus on jobs. >> and peter, can this president get re-elected if the unemployment report stays along the lines where it's been, the upper 8s into the lower 9s? no president has been re-elected since the '20s that had greater than 7.2%. >> i'm not sure the number is in itself the problem, but it has to be -- look, it has to be an upward project try. we should be passing legislation on trade deals. you know, a lot more should be -- >> jobs.

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