i can love the air®. >>> welcome back to "hardball." we told you earlier about a drop in the market in the dow, up nearly 2,000 points so far. what can washington do to bring confidence back? john harwood with cnbc and writes for the "new york times," and melissa a professor at tulane. thank you both for joining us. john, put it together, the economics the president faces in terms of what he can do about it? >> i'm not sure what we had can do, chris. he face twos problems in dealing with republicans. one, they want to take him down politically, and, two, they have a fundamentally different vision of the role of government, and they have a willingness to try to withstand political pressures most politicians you and i covered aren't willing to do that. they don't care too much about wall street or their leadership, and they are so resistant to tax increases, that they prevented john boehner from having the ability to describing that grand bargain with president obama and eastern this...