joining me now is austan goolsbee, former chairman of president obama's council of economic advisers.w a professor of economics at the university of chicago's booth school of business. thanks for joining me tonight, austan. >> great to see you again, lawrence. >> this is one of the perfect examples of how good policy that can have the effect it's intended makes good politics. when you look at the support numbers for the individual components of the bill in that poll, it's really quite extraordinary. is there a way to translate that support for individual components -- this is something we saw in the health care legislation, too, individual components of the bill had much more support than the overall legislative package. is there a way to translate that kind of support into momentum legislatively? >> you know, i certainly hope so. that's got to be the challenge the white house has is just to get out the door and into people's heads what's actually in the bill. because, you know, the environment in washington is so partisan and poisonous just because one side's saying it's obama's jobs

that's what i would focus on. >> all right. >> austan says exports. administration is persecuting the biggest export, boeing, stop doing harm, let's start there. >> and we'll continue this in the green room. >>> coming up -- rick perry on the ropes. >> yep, there may be slicker candidates and there may be smoother debaters but i know what i believe in and i'm going to stand on that belief every day. i will guide this country with a deep, deep rutter. >> can the number front-runner come back from a shaky debate performance? the roundtable is next. performance? the roundtable is next. ♪ [ female announcer ] the road is not exactly a place of intelligence. highway maintenance is underfunded, costing drivers $67 billion a year, and countless tires. which drivers never actually check because they're busy, checking email. this is why we engineered a car that makes 2,000 decisions every second. the new audi a6 is here. the road is now an intelligent place. ♪ >>> what do i have to do short of suicide to convince people i'm not running? apparently, i actually

austan, we hope you're around, we'll be talking soon enough, austan, thank you. >> thank you. jon: let's talk a little politics right now, republican presidential candidates are gearing up for tomorrow night's huge debate. fox news and google are partnering to host it, from orlando, florida, bret baier will be the moderator, he'll be joined by our own megyn kelly and chris wallace. meanwhile, rick perry's campaign just released an aggressive new campaign ad. >> zero jobs. >> not a single job. >> no jobs created. >> people are demoralized. what has happened? >> zero new jobs. >> zero. >> 50 million americans are living in poverty. >> one out of six americans. >> headed in the wrong direction. jon: let's talk about that with chris stierwalt, fox news digital politics editor and host of "power play" on foxnews.com, live. chris, sometimes when candidates want to appear to be sort of above the fray, you go straight for the guy who represents the other paefrplt that seems to be what rick perry is doing here. >> werblgs that's right. jon, when mitt romney was the stand-alone frontrun

. >> with us is a veteran of the obama white house, economic team, austan goolsbee. he's an economics professor at the university of chicago. mr. goolsbee, i want to play more of mr. suskind. so many of your former colleagues have said it is simply not true. here's a question here put to ron suskind as to whether larry summers, the president's top economic adviser at the white house at the beginning of the administration, thought the president of the united states was in over his head. >> seems he did. it seems from the comments of orszag and others, certainly the start of the first year in 2009 into early 2010, these sorts of things were part of the prevailing conversation in the white house. when i asked larry summers he was one of the source force the book about that quote, i said look, what did you mean when he said that? he offers a comment which is more seasoned and less political than that and says we were overwhelmed. we had five times as many problems and didn't have five times as many people. >> incredibly damning mr. goolsbee, especially when you know the

proposed tax cuts and tax hikes in president obama's job's bill with economists martin feldstein and austan goolsbee. >> ifill: kwame holman recaps last night's faceoff among republican presidential hopefuls, where frontrunner rick perry came under fire from his rivals. >> woodruff: ray suarez examines new figures showing a record 46 million americans now live below the poverty line. >> ifill: and jim lehrer sits down with jeffrey brown to reflect on 20 years of moderating presidential debates. >> the first step is you've got to be prepared. preparation means not so you can write the greatest questions in the world but so you can listen in some comfort zone to the answers. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> okay, listen. somebody has got to get serious. >> i think... >> we need renewable energy. >> ...renewable energy is vital to our planet. >> you hear about alternatives, right? wind, solar, algae. >> i think it's got to work on a big scale. and i think it's got to be affordable. >> so, where are they? >> it has

from, you know, several people i talked to on the economic team, one of them i think i can mention, austanted a lot with me, you know, became chairman of the council of economic advisers. >> somewhat significant position. >> he didn't talk to ron. we have all our takes on this. the problem is, to me, is not these kind of methodological questions. it's silly for me to get into some sort of -- >> with another author. i get that. >> people can make their own judgments when they read the books, but it's a question of the larger take and whether the evidence is there for that. so is the evidence there that this was not just a boys club, which i reported in reported in my book and they had this dinner and i outlined who was at the dinner. >> i read that story and i assumed ron suskind had taken it from your book. >> rereport. there's a distinction between being a boys club and hostile work environment. and basically the white house is like a newsroom, a lot of companies, it's tough up there. the point is larry summers and rahm emanuel treated men and women in very harsh ways. but there was not a