america is the greatest force for freedom that the world has ever known. [ applause ] when north korea invaded the south pushing the allied forces into a tiny sliver of territory, the perimeter, it seemed like the war could be lost. but you, our korean veterans pushed back, fought on, year after bloody year. and this past veterans' day i went to seoul and joined our korean war veterans for the 60th anniversary of that war. and we marked that milestone in a free and prosperous republic of korea one of our greatest allies. when communist forces in vietnam unleashed the tet offensive. it fuelled the debate here at

home that raged over that war. you our vietnam veterans did not always receive the respect that you deserved which was a national shame, but let it be remembered that you won every major battle of that war, every single one. [ applause ] as president i've been honored to welcome our vietnam veterans to the white house and finally present them with the medals and recognition that they had earned. there's been a chance to convey on behalf of the american people those simple words with which our vietnam veterans greet each or, welcome home. [ applause ] in the decade that followed the spirit of your service was carried forward by the troops in

the sands of desert storm and the rugged hills of the ball kens -- ball kens and now it's carried on by a new generation. next weekend will mark the tenth anniversary of those awful attacks on our nation. in the days ahead we will honor the lives we lost and the families that loved them. the first responders who rushed to save others. and we will honor all those who have served to keep us safe these ten difficult years. especially the men and women of our armed forces. today as we near this solemn anniversary, it's fitting that we salute the extraordinary decade of service rendered by the 9/11 generation. the more than five million americans who have worn the uniform over the past ten years. they were there on duty that september morning having

enlisted in a time of peace, but they instantly transitioned to a war footing. they're the millions of recruits who have stepped forward since. seeing their nation at war and saying send me. they're every single soldier, airmen, marine and coast guard man serving today who has volunteered to serve in a time of war knowing they could be sent into harm's way. they come from every corner of our country. big cities, small towns. they come from every background and every creek. their sons and daughters who carry on the family's tradition of service and the new immigrants who have become our newest citizens. there are national guardsmen and

reservists who have served in unprecedented deployments. they're the record number of women in our military proving themselves in combat like never before. and every day for the past ten years these men and women have succeeded together as one american team. a generation -- [ applause ] they're a generator of innovators. they've changed the way america fights and wins at wars. raised in the age of the internet they've harnessed new technologies on the battle field. they've learned the cultures and traditions and languages of the places where they served. trained to fight they've also taken on the role of diplomats and mayors and development experts, negotiating with tribal sheiks, working with village

shuras, partnering with communities. young captains, sergeants, lieutenants, they've assumed responsibilities once reserved for more senior commanders and remind us that in an era when so many other institutions have shirked their obligations the men and women of the united states military welcome responsibility. [ applause ] >> in a decade of war they bore an extraordinary burden. with more than two million of our service members deploying to the war zones. hundreds of thousands have deployed again and again year after year. never before has our nation asked so much of our all volunteer force that 1% of americans who wears the uniform.

we see the scope of their sacrifice and the tens of thousands who now carry the scars of war. both seen and unseen. our remarkable wounded warriors. we see it in our extraordinary military families who serve here at home. the military spouzs who hold their families together. the millions of military children many of whom have lived most of their young lives with our nation at war and mom or dad deployed. and most profoundly we see the wages of war in those patriots who never came home. they gave their all. their last full measure of devotion in kandahar, in the gulf, in the battles for baghdad. now they lay at rest in quiet

corners of america. but they live on in the families who loved them and in the nation that is safer because of their service. and today we pay humble tribute to the more than 6, 200 americans in uniform who have given their lives in this hard decade of war. we honor them all. we are grateful for them. to their service, to their sacrifice, that their astonishing record of achievement our forces have earned their place among the greatest of generations. toppling the taliban in just weeks, driving al qaeda from the training camps where they plotted 9/11. giving the afghan people the opportunity to live free from terror. when the decision was made to go into iraq our troops raced across deserts and removed a

dictator in less than a month. when insurgents, militias and terrorists plunged iraq into chaos our troops adapted, they endured ferocious urban combat, they reduced the violence and gave iraqis a chance to forge their own future. when a reinsurgent taliban threatened to give al qaeda more space to plot against us, the addisal forces i ordered to afghanistan went on offensive taking the fight total ban pushing them out of their safe havens, allowing afghans to reclaim their communities in training afghan forces. a few months ago our troops achieved our greatest victory yet in the fight against those who attacked us on 9/11 delivering justice to osama bin laden in one of the greatest intelligence and military operations in american history. [ applause ]

credit for these successes, credit for this progress belongs to all who have worn the uniform in these wars. [ applause ] today we are honored to be joined by some of them. i would ask all those who served this past decade, the members of the 9/11 generation to stand and accept the thanks of a grateful nation. [ applause ] thanks to these americans we're moving forward from a position of strength. having ended our combat mission in iraq and removed more than 100,000 troops so far we'll

remove the rest of our troops by the end of this year and we will end that war. [ applause ] having put al qaeda on the path to defeat, we won't relent until the job is done. having started to draw down our forces in afghanistan we'll bring home 33,000 troops by next summer and bring home more troops in the coming year. [ applause ] as our mission transitions from combat to support, afghans will take responsibility for their own security in the longest war in american history will come to a responsible end. for our troops and military families who sacrificed so much, this means relief from an unrelenting decade of operations. today few, fewer of our sons and

daughters are serving in harm's way. for so many troops who've already done their duty we put an end to the stop loss, our soldiers can now look forward to shorter deployments, that means more time at home between deployments and more time training for the full range of missions that they will face. indeed despite ten years of continuous war, it must be said america's military is the best that it's ever been. we saw that most recently in the skill and precision of our brave forces who helped the libyan people finally break free from the grip of muammar gadhafi and as we meet -- [ applause ] as we meet the test that the future will surely bring including hard fiscal choices here at home there should be no

doubt the united states of america will keep our military the best trained, the best led, the best equipped fighting force in history. it will continue to be the best. now as today's wars end, as our troops come home, we're reminded once more of our responsibilities to all who have served. the bond between our forces and our citizens must be a sacred trust. for me and my administration upholding that trust is not just a matter of policy, not about politics, it is a moral obligation. that's why my very first budget included the largest percentage increase to the v.a. budget in the past 30 years.

[ applause ] so far we're on track to increase funding for veterans' affairs by 30%. and because we passed advanced appropriations when washington politics threatens to shut down the government as it did last spring, the veterans medical care that you count on was safe. let me say something else about v.a. funding you depend on, as a nation we face touch choices as we put our fiscal house in order. i want to be absolutely clear, we cannot, we must not, we will not balance the budget on the backs of our veterans. [ applause ] as commander in chief, i won't allow it.

with these historic investments we're making dramatic improvements to veterans's health care. we're improving v.a. facilities to better serve our women veterans. we're expanding outreach and care for our rural veterans like those i met during my recent visit to cannon falls including two proud legion theirs tom newman of post 620. are they here right now? they're out there somewhere. that was a good lunch, by the way. for our vietnam vet rabs because we declared that three diseases are presumed to be exposed to agent orange, we've become paying disability benefits that

you need. [ applause ] for our veterans of the buffalo war we're moving forward to address the nine infectious diseases that we declared are now presumed to be related to your service in desert storm. at the same time our outstanding v.a. secretary is working every day to build a 21st century v.a. many of our vietnam vets are already submitting their agent orange claims electronically. hundreds of you from all wars are requesting your benefits online thanks to the new blue button on the v.a. website. you can now share your personal health information with your doctors outside of the v.a. and we're making progress in sharing medical records between d.o.d. and v.a. we're not there yet. i've been pounding on this thing since i came into office. we're going to stay on it.

we're going to keep at it until our troops and veterans have a lifetime electronic medical record that you can keep for your life. [ applause ] of course, we've still got some work to do. we've got to break the backlog of disability claims. i know that over the past year the backlog's actually gown due to the new claims from agent orange. let me say this and i know the secretary agrees, when our veterans who fought for our country have to fight to get the benefits that you've already earned that's unacceptable. so this is going to remain a key priority for us. we're going to keep hiring new claims processors and keep investing in new paperless systems and keep moving ahead with our innovation competition in which our dedicated v.a. employees are developing new ways to process your claims faster. we want your claims to be

processed not in months, but in days. the bottom line is this, your claims need to be processed quickly and accurately the first time. we're not going to rest until we get that done. we will not rest. the same is true for our mission to end homelessness among our veterans. already we've helped to bring tens of thousands of veterans off the streets. for the first time ever we've made veterans and military families a priority not just to the v.a., not just to d.o.d., but across the federal government. that includes making sure that federal agencies are working together so that every veteran who fought for america has a home in america. [ applause ] we're working to fulfill our

obligations to our 9/11 generation veterans especially our wounded warriors. the constant thread of i.e.d.s has meant a new generation of service members with multiple traumatic injuries including traumatic brain injury. and thanks to advanced armor and medical technologies our troops are surviving injuries that would have been fatal in previous wars. so we're saving more lives, but more american veterans live with severe wounds for a lifetime. that's why we need to be there for them for a lifetime. we are giving unprecedented support to our wounded warriors especially those with traumatic brain injury and thanks to the veterans and caregivers legislation i signed into law we started training caregivers so they could start receiving the skills and is stipends they need to care for their loved ones.

[ applause ] we're working aggressively to address another signature wound of this war which has led to too many fine troops and veterans to take their lives and that's post traumatic stress disorder. we continue to make major investments improving outreach and suicide prevention, hiring and training more mental health counselors and treating more veterans than ever before. the days when depression and ptsd were stigmatized those days must end. that's why i made the decision to start sending condolence let toers the families of service members who take their lives while deployed in a combat zone. these americans did not die because they were weak, they were warriors. they deserve our respect. every man and woman in uniform, every veteran needs to know that your nation will be there to help you stay strong. [ applause ] it's the right thing to do.

in recent months we've heard new reports of some of our veterans not getting the prompt mental health care that they desperately need and that too is unacceptable. if a veteran has the courage to seek help, we need to do everything in our power to deliver the life-saving mental care that they need. so the secretary and the v.a. are going to stay on this and we'll continue to make it easier for veterans with post traumatic stress to qualify for v.a. benefits regardless of the war that you served in. if you served in a combat theater and a v.a. doctor confirms a diagnosis of ptsd that's enough. which brings me to the final area where america must meet its obligations to our veterans. a place where we need each other and that's the task of renewing our nation's economic strength. after a decade of war, it's time

to focus on nation building here at home. allege r and our rhett vans, especially our 9/11 veterans have the skills and the dedication to help lead the way. that's why we're funding the post 9/11 g.i. bill which is helping more than 500,000 veterans and family members go to college, get their degrees and play their part moving america forward. [ applause ] it's why this fall we'll start encolluding vocational training as well. so veterans can develop the skills to succeed in today's economy. that's why i directed the federal government to hire more veterans. including more than 100,000 veterans in the past year and a half alone. in this tough economy far too many of our veterans are still

unemployed. that's why i proposed a comprehensive initiative to make sure we're tapping the incredible talents of our veterans. it's got two main parts. first, we're going to do more to help our newest veterans find and get that private sector job. [ applause ] we're going to offer more help with career and job searches. i directed d.o.d. and the v.a. to create what we're calling a reverse boot camp to help our newest veterans prepare for civilian jobs and translate their exceptional military skills into industry. into industry accepted licenses and credentials. and today i'm calling on every state to pass legislation that makes it easier for our veterans to get the credentials and jobs for which they're so clearly qualified. this needs to happen. it needs to happen now.

second, we're encouraging the private sector to do its part. so i challenged companies across america to hire or train 100,000 unemployed veterans or their spouses. this builds on the commitments that many companies have made as joining forces of campaign championed by the first lady and vice president's spouse dr. jill biden. 100,000 jobs for veterans and spouses. and to get this done i propose a wounded warrior tax credit for companies that hire unemployed veterans with a disability. when congress returns from recess, this needs to be at the top of their agenda. for the sake of our veterans, for the sake of our economy, we

need these veterans working and contributing and creating the new jobs and industries that will keep america competitive in the 21st century. these are the obligations we have to each other. oush forces, our veterans, our citizens. these are the responsibilities we must fulfill. not just when it's easy. not just when we're flush with cash. not just when it's convenient, but always. that's a lesson we learned again this year in the life and in the passing of frank buttles, our last veteran from the first world war. passed away at the age of 110. think about it, frank lived the

american century. an ambulance driver on the western front he bore witness to the carnage of the trenches in europe. then during the second world war he survived more than three years in japanese prisoner of war camps. then like so many veterans he came home, went to school, pursued a career, started a family. lived a good life on his farm in west virginia. even in his later years after turning 100, frank buttles still gave back to his country. he goes speak to school children about his extraordinary life. he'd meet and inspire our veterans. and for 80 years he served as a proud member of the american legion. [ applause ]

the day he was laid to rest, i ordered the flags be flown at half-staff at the white house, at the government buildings across the nation, at our embassies around the world. as frank buckles lay in honor at arlington's memorial chapel, hundreds passed by his flag-draped casket in quiet procession. most were strangers who never knew him. to this american soldier, that afternoon i had the privilege of going over to arlington and spending a few moments with frank's daughter susanna who cared for her father to the very end. it was a chance for me to convey the gratitude of an entire nation. and to pay my respects to an american who reflected the best

of who we are as a people. and legion theirs it was a reminder not just to the family and friends of corporal frank buckles but to the veterans and families of every generation. no matter when you serve, no matter how many years ago that you took off your uniform, know matter how long you live as a proud veteran of this country, we love you. america will never leave your side. america will never forget. we will always be grateful to you. god bless you. god bless all our veterans. and god bless the united states of america. [ applause ] thank you. [ applause ] president obama there in minnesota wrapping up at the american legion's annual conference. talking about veterans, veterans

benefits. he also talked about getting veterans back to work. unemployment among veterans hovers around 13%. the president also speaking about hurricane irene, jobs and the economy. that speech coming days before he finalizes his jobs plan. he's expected town vail that jobs plan before labor day. but nbc reports that's ongoing debate in the west wing over the details. let's bring in kristen welker who is standing by at the white house. kristen, we just heard the president speaking there mostly about veterans' benefits. let's cover the jobs plan and what we might see. >> reporter: it is still a work in progress that's what white house officials are telling us. some of the things that the president is considering putting in this plan would be tax breaks for companies who hire new workers, investing in green infrastructure projects, tax breaks for clean energy projects, as well as payroll tax breaks, helping those who have been unemployed for long peefts and helping folks who want to

refinance their homes. again, those are a few things that are being considered. there's been a lot of discussion about whether the president is going to pursue a big plan or a small plan something that "the washington post" actually reported today. one white house official told me look, the president wants an aggressive, robust plan, but also has to be realistic because it has to get through congress and the republican led house. republicans just this week saying that they're not going to support any plan that includes new spending so that's the challenge there. but this is really a key speech, veronica as you know unemployment continues to hov above 9%. we're just learning today that consumer confidence is at its lowest level since april of 2009. there's really a lot of pressure on the president to get this. >> absolutely. we can look for that plan to be unveiled after labor day. kristen welker t at the white house, thank you. officials are getting a view of the damage caused by

hurricane irene. some of the damage can't be assessed because the flooding is that bad. former vice president dick cheney defends controversial decision made during his eight years in the white house in an nbc news ux collusive. that's coming up next. [ female announcer ] so you think your kids are getting enough vegetables? maybe not. v8 v-fusion juice gives them a full serving of vegetables plus a full serving of fruit. but it just tastes like fruit. [ male announcer ] get five dollars in money-saving coupons at v8juice.com.

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welcome back to msnbc live. our top story at this hour, another tropical storm developing in the atlantic. cata could move into the caribbean by this weekend as a category three storm. forecasters say it is too early to predict how big a threat it could pose. we are still dealing with irene's aftermath. the storm claimed at least 40 lives. five million people still have no power and damage estimates are in the billions.

but along the east coast people are looking ahead to labor day. >> you can head to the jersey shore if you were planning to do that. >> what a difference a couple of days make. >> get the hell off the beach in asbury park and get out. >> that was new jersey governor chris christie on saturday. but after touring the shoreline yesterday he encouraged visitors to come on down. >> be an opportunist, you'll probably get a good price. enjoy the last week of summer. >> most of north carolina's coast is open for business and ready for visitors who are coming for the holiday weekend. >> in north carolina residents and business owners hope to rebuild and recoup of. some of their losses with labor day tourism. >> it's crucial for us. >> up and down the eastern seaboard from the carolinas to the catskills, irene's impact is still being felt. >> it's just destruction. i mean you can see for yourself.

>> welcome to prattsville, new york, irene ripped through this placid community 140 miles from manhattan, destroying homes, roads and lives. >> my job is pretty much no more right now. it's going to take a while to get back to where we were. >> flooding still a major problem in new jersey. the willow brook mall in wayne is all but submerged. >> fortunately we were spared the heavy winds from thurn. but this type of damage is far more devastating in the long run. >> irene veered into vermont with avengeance cutting off entire communities from civilization with the worst flooding in 0 years. >> out of the 15 record crests, the highest the river has ever gotten across the irene spread here, five of them occurred here in the state of vermont. >> that was jim cantore in vermont where we actually find our nbc's ron allen. ron, get us up to date on the rescue and recovery efforts. i understand that emergency management officials have been using national guard helicopters

to airlift food and supplies. >> reporter: exactly. there are about a dozen towns in vermont that are essentially cut off. so many places in this state are linked by a seasoningle road or bridge and there are over 250 bridges and roads that have been essentially washed out, severely damaged across the state. this area that i'm in now is about as bad as it gets. this pile of mud has been brought here by a front end loader from the backyards of the homes over there. they don't have it nearly as bad as this particular house here which is as you can see about to fall into this river. the entire first floor of it, the corner of it here was completely ripped away by this water. and when you think about this, this water shouldn't be here. this used be a babbling brook that was over in that direction about 100 yards or so, but the river has literally pushed down in this direction, turned and eroded this part of what used to be a street. so, whether that's going to stay there or not is anybody's guess.

it seems like it's going to fall over into this river. the owner of this property was saying earlier that he wants the state to come back and push this river back over where it used to be. so a lot of engineering to go on here. they're still trying to clear the mud out of these the backyards of these homes over in this direction. just still unfolding disaster here in vermont. the death toll has gone up to four people. there were two workers at a water treatment plant who were killed trying to bring that plant back online and as you said, the biggest concern here is still trying to reach these dozen or so communities that are essentially cut off. >> and ron, we're looking at just one home there. you spent a couple days there now. give us a sense of what else you're seeing? is this par for the course in terms of damage? >> reporter: this is about as bad as it gets. the biggest problems are the roads that have been washed out. when you troy to go anywhere in this state you have to take

round about routes to get there. the saying you can't get there from here is so true in vermont. >> nbc's ron allen in vermont. ron, we appreciate it. thank you. officials just issued a new weather warning along several rivers and creeks in new jersey this morning the coast guard rescued folks flooded out in patterson. the rescue boats were floating along a residential street. take a look at those pictures. meanwhile utility crews are scrambling to restore power to about 285,000 homes and businesses still without electricity in the aftermath of the storm. nbc's michelle franzen is live for us in manville. with all that water that the storm has left behind, how difficult has it been to get to the flood victims? >> reporter: it's been very difficult. i mean the floodwaters -- we're in the northern part of new jersey that's been dealing with this in the initial aftermath of irene. now we're hearing down the floodwaters have moved down to other communities they're having some of the same issues.

the helicopters, the overhead view shows that they're either having to go in by boat, obviously and firefighters sometimes even have to sort of swim to get to safety themselves. it's just sort of this story as ron said unfolding all across places in vermont and still lingering here in new jersey. we're at a home here in manville that was inundated with water from two rivers. you've got the rareton on one side, the mill stone on the other. this home sits in the triangle of that. water coming in through both sides. it rushed up here into the basement. we've got some photos that the other than took before the storm hit showing the backyard and then we've got the aftermath after irene swept in with the rain and the floodwaters over spilled their banks of those rivers. record flooding done here now. the clean up is beginning all around in this neighborhood. this is one of the neighborhoods still without power here in

manville. and we're told by the owner that he just spoke to utility crews, the estimate two to three weeks before they have power again. >> two to three weeks. michelle franzen there in manville, new jersey. thank you for that. homeland security secretary and agriculture secretary are getting a firsthand look at what irene did to north carolina. meanwhile business owners and homeowners are busy trying to rebuild. they will survey damage from the air and repair crews are working to restore power to 150,000 customers. residents are having to return to their homes by ferry, the only way to get on and off the island. meet a junior member of the white house press course? scholastic kid reporter and his big talk with president obama. having the right real estate agent on your side

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i'm chuck today, coming up on andrea mitchell. the flood crisis intensifies in new england. we're going to get the latest from vermont's senator pat hay he surveying the damage. plus new jersey congressman on the flood threat in his state which saw a number of high water rescues just today. what does big labor want to see many the jobs plan? see you in 15 minutes on "andrea mitchell reports". some headlines now. rebels are demanding that muammar gadhafi's family return to libya. at least 66 u.s. troops died in afghanistan this month making it the deadliest month in nearly ten years. nearly half were killed when the taliban took down a helicopter

earlier this month. an appeals court is hearing arguments right now whether the sue son shooting suspect should be forcibly medicated. prosecutors say the decision is for prison officials. jared layoff ner's attorneys say it should be up to a judge. michael vick signed a six-year $100 million contract with the philadelphia eagles. two years ago he was in skral on dog fighting charges. former vice president dick cheney is making no apologies in his newly released him your "in my time." that morning he spoke to matt lauer. >> you've been called skillful, dynamic, you've been called controversy and devicive. some people have called you the most devicive political figure in this country in a century. >> you left out carth vader.

>> you both are laughing there. we're getting more excerpts from this book today. senator john mccain getting jabbed in a couple of chapters. in one the vice president takes a shot at how mcdane handled himself in a 2008 white house meeting on the financial crisis. the vice president writing the president came back to mccain this time he spoke, but only for himself. it was a marked contrast with obama whose words carry the authority of all the democrats in the room. senator mccain added nothing of substance. let's start with you. this story isn't new. we heard at the time about what went on at that meeting. why do you think cheney included it in his book? is he trying to settle old scores here? >> i think so. clearly these two don't like each other. it's probably a huge temptation if you're to write a memoir to put things in there, some jabs at your adversaries and foes. i'm not sure about the economy, but i will tell you this, john mccain was right about iraq. and as much as i think cheney got a lot of things right, the

iraq war did not turn around until 2006 when general petraeus was brought in. a big guy pushing for that counterinsurgentsy strategy was john mccain. theb at the opposite ends of the economy and foreign affairs. >> let's go ahead and get your thoughts, bill as well. i heard you kind of remark off the top there. we're not going to interrupt you. >> i just want to say there's an old saying here in washington that a friend is somebody who will agree to stab you in the chest. not in the back. well, dick cheney's got a lot of friends then. he stabbed john mccain in this book, colin powell, kondy rice, george tenet, stabbed them all in the chest. he is settling scores. what i find more surprising is he seems to re-enforce the theory at the time that he and not george bush was making the decisions in that administration. he brags about it. >> and what do you have to make of that, gentlemen?

>> well, for me, i mean, again, particularly in the first four years when dick cheney says on the decision whether to go into iraq or not that bush threw everybody else out of the room and turned to dick and said what do you think you should do? we didn't elect dick cheney as president. we elected george bush. >> it's not just that, cheney making it clear he had no intention of backing off some of his controversial policies take water boarding for instance. let's listen. >> you know though if we were to conduct a poll in this country right now and ask people if water bofrding is torture, the vast majority of people would say it is. >> i would argue, matt, that it's important for us not to get caught up in the notion that you can only have popular methods of interrogation if you want to run an effective counterterrorism program. the fact is it worked. we learned valuable information from that process and we kept the country safe for seven years. >> regardless of everything that's been said about water

boarding all the criticism there, let's leave the last question with you. what do you have tokz about what cheney's comments were? >> first of all, it goes back to the last question, mccain opposed water boarding as i recall and thought it was torture. cheney thinks it's fine. let me say this, dick cheney i'm ambivalent about them him. he did get one thing right it's that 9/11 was serious and there was not another attack during the bush administration. that was a huge accomplishment. that alone is a great legacy. >> i would just add that, you know, dick cheney is totally unapologetic. it's not whether or not torture is popular it's whether it's legal. it is illegal against american law and international law and dick cheney is its chief champion. >> all right. gentlemen, we appreciate both of your thoughts today. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. we'll be right back now with

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president obama sat down with an exclusive interview with two kid reporters. the sixth graders talked to the president for the september issue of "sclostic news magazine." take a look. >> what are the greatest challenges facing our generation? >> i think that right now the biggest challenge facing the country is the economic challenge trying to figure out how we grow the economy and make sure everybody has a good job. and everybody who's willing to work is able to have a good job. >> that was 12-year-old jacob schroeder a member of the scholastic news kid press corp. so nice of you to join us. >> thank you. >> that was a pretty impressive question there with the president. >> i was actually pretty thrilled about his answer. >> really? why? >> it's going to affect kids.

it's good for kids to know about the president. what the president is going to say. >> so were you nervous doing that interview? there you are, you are the first kid reporter to sit down with president obama, what was going through your head? >> i was pretty excited. i was a bit surprised when the president walked into the room because it wasn't announced that he was going in that moment. >> what do you mean? i understand that you didn't know that you were going to be on this assignment? >> it was a nondisclosed assignment. i was just asked if i would be available on the 15th of july. i said yes and later i found out that i was to interview the president. >> how did you feel at that moment? >> i was just excited. i wouldn't believe it. >> i have to ask you, how many interviews have you done in your very short career, you're 12 years old. how many have you done before the president? >> i don't want to proximate, you can go online to www sclathicnews.com and see it. i don't know the exact number. >> okay.

were there any surprises that you took away from president obama's interview? anything surprise you? >> i was surprised about the personal questions. like what do you like to read when he was our age, hardy boys, the hob it, lord of the rings and comic books like spider man. and i was also a bit surprised when i asked him what founding father he would like to sit down and meet with. he said benjamin franklin. i was surprised when i asked myself that question, i would have said the same thing. >> really? i understand there was a special guest in your interview. >> yes, bo the first dog came in. it was so incredible. the dog just walked up. ran in up to the president and the president sat down. the dog was a bit nervous and antsy because of all the people in the room. it was very nice. >> i understand the president also left you with a present which you've brought me today, i

see, a gift for me? what are these? >> they are part of a goody bag that the president gave me. this one's plain, this one's peanut. what's special about them is on the back they have the presidential seal and also the manufactured signature of the president and the president himself gave them to me. it was very, very awesome. >> you're at least going to let me taste what the presidential m&ms taste like. >> sure. >> maybe during the break. >> now that you've interviewed the president who is your next big interview? who do you want to interview? >> since i interviewed their father, i would probably like to interview sasha and maliyah. >> excellent. jacob schroeder congratulations, sir. job well done. >> thank you. >> so nice to see you today. i'm veronica de la cruz, thank you so much for watching. i'll see you back here tomorrow. up next andrea mitchell mchl. chuck today is filling in today. .

chuck today is filling in today. . chuck today is filling in today. a good tuesday, here's a look at your business travelers' forecast. pretty good in the northeast starting to dry out. we're watching showers and strong thunderstorms in parts of the central states. as you look towards the southeast we're looking at strong thunderstorms as well. temperatures so nice in the northeast. boston 70. washington at 83. hot in atlanta at 91. have a great day. see if we can "stitch" together a better deal. that's a hint, antoine. ooh! see what anandra did? booking your flight and hotel at the same time gets you prices hotels and airlines won't let expedia show separately. book it. major wow factor! where you book matters. expedia.

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