arianna huffington, chair, president, and editor in chief of "the huffington post" media group. and ed connor, visiting scholar at the american enterprise institute, former managing director at bane capital. arianna, do you think that the obama you're seeing now -- and one of the things i'm struck by is how the election changed the political climate. # the republicans seem on the defensive, trying to reinvent the plan. obama seems more confident. is this the new obama? is this the old obama? is this the real obama? >> well, the great thing for obama right now is that he has the public on his side. my concern right now -- and that's, i think, will determine which obama will actually prevail -- is that jobs and growth are not on his agenda. it is absolutely stunning. if you go back to the election, he kept campaigning around jobs, rebuilding our bridges, rebuilding our infrastructure, the american dream, saving it for the middle class. and both the rhetoric and the legislative agenda around these issues is nowhere to be found. >> i think -- i don't think obama has changed much. i m

i'm joined by arianna huffington.s for the economy if so many young people are not working? >> i think the risks are really serious. they call it the scouring effect. when you graduate from college and you don't get a job or have just graduated, another daughter in college and a lot of their friends are deeply concerned about the fact that over half of them, over half of those graduates last year are either unemployed or underemployed. that's unprecedented over the last decade. it had never been so high. we are talking about over a million students. and on top of it, christine, that is really what is so tragic. they're burdened with massive debts. over a trillion dollars is now the college loan debt, higher than credit card debt. >> unlike the resources to weather it out, wait for a good job and connections of a network to get into a good job or good company, you have these kids taking part-time jobs, jobs that don't require a college education and they're being sidelined in the service industry. they're losing that f

>> so let's talk about these forced budget cuts and the politics behind it with our guests, arianna huffingtonblican senator from south carolina. it's great to see you both. thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> arianna, first to you. you just heard those two clips of the president just a week apart or even just days apart, so what do you think is the change? what's the change in tone? >> well, there's no question that the u.s. economy is in a fragile state, with 25 million, 26 million people unemployed or underemployed. so removing demand from the economy at this time, and doing it in such a completely haphazard way is not going to help. it's going to make it much harder for growth to happen. it's going to make it much harder for jobs to be added. so it really is an incredible sign of how dysfunctional our political system has become, and i'm sure senator demint is happy to be out of it at the moment. >> senator, i want to get your take on this as well, because you heard that change in tone from president obama. at the same time, you have many republicans saying that it's all scare tactics.

arianna huffington took a nap for me this week.o i had someone snap a cell phone pic. she showed off two nap rooms that she insisted on installing in her network headquarters. her employees can sneak away and get middle of the work day shut eye on a pull-out couch and they can do it in a futuristic nap pod or do it in a wildly popular massage chair. it's a new growing breed of bosses who are encouraging workers to rest and recharge. for a while, we've all known the work, work, work mantra puts us at higher risk of hypertension, diabetes, obesity and cancer, now a lot of companies care thanks to a harvard study that says sleepy workers cost businesses more than $63 billion every year. the dreary who drag themselves in apparently are aren't as productive as their eight-hour night counterparts. roughly a third of american workers sleep more than six hours a night. that means slower reaction timeses when you get to work. you don't remember things and not as creative according to experts and in short, we're all working around like zombi

become global brands, and i think the huffington post from our perspective we knew two years ago and it is two year anniversary of the deal right now that ariannand her team had built a game changing property and brand. wall street looked at the deal and didn't like it at first. but i think, you know, wall street and in a lot of cases lags behind where the opportunities are because they're focused on the here and now and we're focused on where things are going and i think it's proved out to be true. we have had double digit growth in in traffic. we have expanded internationally. we won product of the year, most innovative media product. you look at huffington post, i would argue it is one of the most valuable media properties in the world right now. liz: one of the things that critics might say well the traffic is flat across the board and while you had been declining, you've stopped the slide, certainly, so there you get the thumbs up, but at what point do you really see traffic markedly move to the upside? >> you know, we reported 6% traffic growth, which out of the top ten internet companies is one of the best performances, and then you dig

huffington post." led by a wonderful woman, friend of mine, arianna long, long, long time, we go way back to californiawant to throw some questions to you, are you ready for it? >> great. let's do it! >> bill: crossfire here on a tuesday morning. don starts us off from tampa florida. hey, don, how are you? >> caller: hey, bill. thanks for taking my call. >> bill: sure. >> caller: i'm a little annoyed actually against the union -- not so much the unions have the right idea like for the u.p.s., the post office, i'm in the pipe fitter's union. >> bill: good for you. >> caller: we all have widths for women and men. and they're a prime example of what -- the way it should be. it is about time maybe obama got out there and spoke about how the unions do this and maybe other people can -- we can be -- we're supposed to be an example you know what i'm saying. >> bill: good point. don, as you know, particularly in the building trades, right it was a problem for a long time. but the building trades really stepped up and ode said we need to recruit women and train them the same as men. they can do the jobs. we hav